there's something at work in my soul
by ohmytheon
Summary: (FMA AU) Stein is a State Alchemist who is forced to investigate a series of murders to capture the Vector Alchemist, Medusa, with the help of his old roommate, Lt. Col. Mjolnir, and former pal, Gen. Albern. But things turn dark when Stein must face the awful truth about alchemy and his own demons and mistakes. Is he any better than Medusa or can Marie remind him of his humanity?
1. Deflagration

**Author's Notes:** I can't believe I finished this monstrosity of a fic, but I did it and now I can finally focus on all my other projects without feeling guilty. This is the Soul Eater/FMA AU that no one asked for, but I couldn't get out of my head and I used this year's Resbang as an excuse to write it. What was supposed to be like 20k turned into almost 44k, so wow, that's absurd. Special thanks to innocentcinnamonbun on tumblr whose incredible and beautiful artwork you can see on her tumblr page. (I'm learning how to link on here...) I'm absolutely in love with all and may or may not be using the first one as my phone's background because WOW it's brilliant. I AM IN AWE AND FLOORED.

 **Disclaimer:** I own nothing and innocentcinnamonbun owns the art!

* * *

 **there's something at work in my soul**  
 _chapter one: deflagration_

* * *

Rain was as familiar to him as, well, not a friend. Most would say that he didn't know what friends were, but rain was a near constant for him in Central. He supposed that some people would find that comforting. Honestly, he didn't feel one way or another. The rain didn't soothe him and it didn't hinder him. He was capable of doing most of his work and research inside anyways.

Currently it had been fifty-five days since Stein last left his home-turned-lab. He only knew that because he had made sure to buy enough food to last him approximately sixty days and he was beginning to come up short. Not that he counted his calories or watched what he ate. He just didn't like the idea of being interrupted by something as simple as hunger and the need to grocery shop. His work was important, one of a kind. He already slept as little as possible. The government acted like his unending research wasn't enough as it was.

But then, the government was particularly greedy when it came to alchemy.

Many of his fellow State Alchemists had dropped out of the program after the war ended. Stein didn't blame them exactly, but he didn't know how anyone could give up alchemy, something that was a part of him as much as his brain. Then again, he hadn't been shaken nearly to the point they were. He had simply come back home, stitched up what little was left of his soul after committing so many atrocities, and gone back to his research. And if he had any nightmares, he didn't sleep much anyways.

Just as he was finishing typing up a report on his latest test, a knock at the door echoed through the hallway. Stein ignored it at first, thinking that it might be one of the neighborhood kids. The older ones liked to bully the weaker kids into knocking on his door and running away in terror should he ever answer. He was considered something of a horror legend to the kids. It didn't phase him much, but it was sometimes amusing to watch them flee or try to come up with an excuse if he ever caught them.

A minute later though, the knocking continued. It was a persistent and precise tapping on the metal door. The second he recognized it, he knew who was behind the door. Well, not who exactly, more like what. Stein sighed and saved his work before standing up and stretching. He hated being bothered by what he considered watch guards, but he was a Dog of the Military and so he had little to do but respond obediently.

At least they didn't try to make him wear that irritating military uniform.

Not bothering with the lights, Stein made his way through his sparse lab to the front room. What would've been considered a living room by most standards held the barest semblance of one. The only reason he had a couch was because of his last roommate who moved out a little under a year after returning from the war. _"Keep it,"_ she'd told him, _"because I know you won't buy another one."_ He hadn't planned on ever using it, but to be honest, he found himself sleeping on it more than his own bed.

Right as another round of knocking began, Stein unlocked the door and opened it, ready to tell of whatever poor Sergeant or Warrant Officer they'd sent to come fetch him. He had very important work to do, after all. Instead, he was left to stare down in mild surprise at his old roommate.

Marie Mjolnir was as small as he remembered, though not as bright. Her normally shiny blonde hair was a dirty blonde and plastered against her head due to the pouring rain and his house not having an awning to hide under. The blue eyepatch was new; she had left wearing the sparse black one the military had given her like an apology back in Ishval. It matched her uniform, which she somehow managed to make look attractive, despite being the same as every other soldier's and hiding her curves. Maybe that was just her though.

"Are you going to let me in or are you just going to continue to assess me?" Marie asked.

A very direct question, how so very like her. Despite the fact that he had left her out in the rain and ignored her for a few minutes, she didn't look mad. She didn't look happy either though. Considering that she was still wearing her uniform, when he knew for a fact that she slipped out of her uniform the second she came home, this was not a personal visit. This was work. And they had sent her.

Stein stepped aside so that she could traipse inside. She cringed, muttering an apology about the water, but he only shrugged his shoulders in response. It would take little effort to clean it up. Instead of waiting for him, she found the light switch and turned it on to illuminate the room as he closed the door. Even after all these years gone, she didn't need his help to find her way around the place.

"Do you need something dry to wear?" If it was anyone else in the world, Stein would not have bothered asking. Hospitality was a stretch for him even with her after years of not seeing her, but he knew that she would appreciate the attempt. He did not dwell on why her appreciation mattered. He especially did not dwell on why he had some of her old, dry belongings for her to wear still stored in a box in the back of his closet.

Marie smiled at him in the same sad way she did when she was moving out. "Thank you, but no, I'm afraid I'm here on business."

"What do the Powers-That-Be require of me now?" Stein asked as he moved to sit on the couch. He sat right in the middle, lounging and throwing his arms on the back. A polite man would have offered her a place to sit, but Stein admittedly felt on edge. The government was requiring his assistance and they had sent Marie to get him, knowing full well what she meant to him. Or at least he thought they did. They had their eyes in everyone's lives.

"It's not necessarily you, per say," Marie told him carefully, "so much as someone you know."

Stein eyed her. She didn't appear uncomfortable being under his scrutiny, but she never had been. While every other person averted their gaze from him or skirted around him, she never looked away from his gaze and was always upfront with him. She wasn't afraid of him, despite his reputation. He wouldn't have blamed her if she had been; she had seen firsthand exactly what he was capable of.

"What do they want?" Stein questioned flatly.

"You're familiar with Medusa Gorgon," Marie said, not sounding a hint bitter. He remembered the times when they were younger and she would desperately try to avoid any conversation about girls with him. Such innocent times seemed so far away, like they weren't even real. No, this was business for her. "Also known as-"

"The Vector Alchemist," Stein interrupted. "Yes, I'm familiar with her."

Marie folded her arms across her chest. "A little more than familiar, I would say. You've seen her work, yes?"

"Sure, along with every General that has their hands in the State Alchemist Program."

"Actually, that isn't true - or at least it hasn't been in a while." Marie sighed. It wasn't often that the government admitted making a mistake. They liked to pretend that every bump in the road was a step in the right direction, like it was meant to happen. Tell that to the men and women that died during the Ishval War. "She disappeared a month after the last State Alchemist exam, taking all of her research with her. Many felt like she was holding out. You were in contact with her that last month."

Fixing his glasses so that they reflected off of the light, Stein considered what was being laid before him. It was true that he had been in contact with Medusa the month after their exams, but that hadn't been the last time he had seen her. That had been eight months ago, a full two months after she'd supposedly disappeared. She had been extremely secretive and they hadn't met in the same location as before, but many alchemists were quite possessive of their research to the point of paranoia.

Apparently, she had been confident enough in him to show him some of her top secret alchemy research and now the government was expecting him to spill the details. Very smart of them to send Marie, who he hated lying to. He wondered if they had questioned her on her past relationship with him before sending her here.

"They need me to tell her what I know of her research?" Stein fiddled around in his pocket for a pack of cigarettes before pulling out a rather smashed up pack. Despite being a little bent, he found a usable one. "It's not much, to be honest. She kept all of her work coded. I only saw what she me to see and only because I thought it might tie into my own research."

"And did it?"

Stein placed the cigarette in his mouth and lit it, taking a long drag and blowing out smoke before answering. "We had different views in the end."

Apparently that wasn't the exact answer that Marie wanted to hear, judging by the little frown on her face. Still, she didn't push him. She knew better than to do that. Anyone else and they would've started trying to interrogate him. Marie knew that if he had something to say, he would say it, and if he didn't want to, he wouldn't. Alchemists were tricky lots to deal with. Having grown up around them, she knew how to deal with them. Most people in the government did not.

"Regardless, the higher ups don't really care about what you have to say about her research," Marie explained, not bothering to wave any smoke away from her face. He was careful to blow in the opposite direction. "They would rather hear about it directly from her."

Ah, there it was: the kicker, the true reason why they needed him. "I'm the last known person to see her. They need me in order to find her."

"She trusted you enough to show you part of her research," Marie pointed out. She didn't look away from him even now. Marie trusted him too, didn't she? And yet from the way she spoke about Medusa, she clearly didn't like this other woman. So what did that say of him? Years had passed since they last saw each other, much longer since he saw Medusa. She had to wonder how much he had changed, especially after the war.

She had offered to stay - if he needed any help - but hadn't given her a reason to do so. Every now and then, he couldn't help but wonder if things would've turned out differently if he had. No reason to dwell on that though, not with her standing in front of him now gazing at him expectantly. Even though he hated going to Headquarters and talking to his superior officers even more, she wouldn't have had to push him to come with her. A soft look from that single eye of hers alone would have corralled him into following her.

Pushing himself from off the couch, Stein moved to grab his white jacket when Marie made a slight noise of disapproval. Stein glanced back at her, jacket in his hands, but he didn't need her to speak to know what she was telling him. He couldn't help himself; he groaned out loud. "I'm not exactly a proper member of the military. Is it really necessary?"

"Yes, Franken, it is," Marie huffed. The use of his name was both foreign and familiar. It had been a long time since anyone had said it, but she always had. "Go put on your uniform. And we're stopping by my place before we head to HQ. I'm not stepping foot in the Fuhrer's office sopping wet."

Once in the Fuhrer's office, Stein tugged uncomfortably at his uniform, just barely avoiding Marie slapping his hands away. Even though he was the leader of the country and military, the Fuhrer was an oddly cheerful man made even odder by his very uncheerful nickname, "Lord Death". The man that had taken over the government after the Ishval War was tall and thin, pale skin stretched thin on a bony face that reminded some people of a skull. He had a white, toothy smile and youthfully cheeky voice, but his dark eyes were sharp and attentive. There was no such thing as hiding from a man like this.

Stein had only met the man once before when he was promoted in a ceremony the month after the war. It had been more for show than anything else. Anyone that knew him would've said that Stein didn't give a damn about how far up he was on the ladder in the military. He'd taken the title of Major for granted after becoming a State Alchemist. The fact that he was technically a Colonel, despite having no subordinates to order around, was laughable. He had only joined the military because of the abilities it granted him with his research. Serving in the war had been an...unfortunate consequence he had considered before taking the initial exam.

During the ceremony, Marie had also been promoted to First Lieutenant, not having the same advantage of having jumped straight to Major like he had upon first joining the military. She had beamed throughout the whole thing, graciously thanking the newly appointed Fuhrer and shaking his hand, even dancing with him at one point - only to cry in her bedroom later that night. He had heard her cries through the walls, torn between leaving her alone and trying to help her, except he hadn't known how to help her. That was the beginning of the end for them, though he couldn't say why he thought that or if it mattered now.

The Fuhrer did not look a day older than he did during the ceremony. It had to have been almost five years and yet the man looked no different. Granted, Marie didn't either, except for being a little more defined and perhaps more subdued, but Stein was certain that he was marginally paler, skinnier, and grayer. Being constantly indoors did not help his appearance.

"Ah, Colonel Stein, a pleasure to meet you again!" the Fuhrer exclaimed, reaching out to shake his hand. Stein was used to having larger hands than anyone, what with his long fingers, but he was curious to see that the Fuhrer's hand was bigger than his, almost comically out of proportion with the rest of his body. "I knew that if anyone was going to be able to get you out of that dark, creepy lab, it would be Lieutenant-Colonel Mjolnir."

Stein arched an eyebrow at that and gave Marie an appraising glance.

In response, Marie tilted her chin up. "You didn't think I would stay where I was, did you?"

"You said that you didn't want to make the military a career," Stein pointed out, though not accusingly. Those hadn't been her exact words. It was more along the lines of her being concerned that it would be more difficult for her to find a husband if she was career military. Men tended to feel...threatened by a woman higher up in the ranks. He wondered if her advancing meant that she had found someone or she had given up. Neither option seemed pleasing for some reason.

Staring back at him almost defiantly, Marie simply told him, "Things change."

"That they do, that they do," the Fuhrer cut in. "I can see you all have plenty to catch up on, but time is of the essence. Luckily you two will be working together on this mission."

Marie whipped her head back to gawk at the Fuhrer. "Pardon me, sir? Together?"

"Mission?" Stein questioned, his brain having even gotten to the 'together' part of his statement, freezing mid-tug on his jacket. The last mission he had gone on had been being sent to the frontlines. The higher ups had known better than to ask him to be part of one again, leaving him to his lonely but important alchemy research. Being dragged back into another military mess was not high on his priority list.

"I'm sure the Lieutenant-Colonel informed you that we are searching for Medusa Gorgon in order to learn the details of her research, but that's not the entire story," the Fuhrer explained as he sat down behind his desk. Neither Marie nor Stein followed suit, as they had not been given leeway to sit. Stein might abhor the military and all that it stood for and even mock some of the customs, but this was the Fuhrer, after all. "We have been...made aware of crimes committed with the use of alchemy and evidence suggests that it's the Vector Alchemist's work. Unfortunately we have little to no idea what we're up against and any attempt at finding her has either ended with dead ends or, to be frank, dead soldiers."

"So you decided to send a mad dog to hunt another one?" Stein drawled dryly.

The Fuhrer smiled and it did not come off as kindly as before. "Well, dogs are good at sniffing things out, are they not? And madness has such a particular stench, especially when alchemy is concerned."

Alchemy was dangerous. There was a reason why the government was so interested in it.

"And the reason for Marie joining?" Stein asked. Marie stiffened at his side, but said nothing. If the Fuhrer had any thoughts concerning Stein's use of Marie's first name instead of her military rank or surname, he made no comments. Stein was about as close to a civilian as a State Alchemist could get these days. The anti-fraternization laws were strict, but it had never been of any concern for them before, especially since they had only ever worked together during the war.

"Well, you're not exactly trained on military protocol or used to being on missions," the Fuhrer said. "That's where Mjolnir comes in. She's going to run the mission." In other words: she was going to hold his leash. "I imagine that her people skills might come in handy." The man had the audacity to laugh as he leaned back in his chair and watched the two of them stand awkwardly next to one another. "Besides, I figured you would want to work with her versus a stranger. I know how...prickly you can be towards people."

That might have been an understatement, but it was true nonetheless. If he had to work with someone, Stein would have only wanted to work with Marie. Everyone else was too squeamish.

The train ride out to Eastern took far too long. Stein stayed in their assigned compartment nearly the entire time, buried in his notes as usual, while Marie toured the train. Well, she said she toured the train when he knew for a fact that she merely got lost and forgot which compartment was theirs. When he finally found her while leaving for his one trip to the bathroom, she was peeking into the wrong compartment and apologizing profusely. She was not particularly forthcoming on what she saw and sat across from him silent and red-faced the rest of the trip.

"Our contact is to meet us at the train station rather than HQ to not arise suspicion," Marie stated as they gathered their belongings and walked off the train.

Stein paused so that he could frown at her. Their contact? So there was to be someone else on this ridiculous mission then? Why hadn't the Fuhrer told him about this other person? It seemed that the longer this went on, the more questions that came about. How were they find answers if their own government refused to provide any?

"Took you long enough to get here, Little Mjolnir," a familiar voice called out to them.

Marie squealed in excitement as she rushed past him, dropping her suitcase in the process. Stein was left to stand and process the situation. Being so short and their contact being so tall, she had been forced to jump in order to throw her arms around the neck of him. She was practically glowing with joy as she beamed. Stein, for his part, did little more than pick up her suitcase and carry both of their belongings forward.

"You're our contact out East?" Stein greeted. "I didn't think the Fuhrer would let you out of his sight."

General Spirit Albarn scowled as he hugged Marie. When she let go out of him, he carefully let her down to her feet so that she didn't stumble. He looked as if he had aged as little as Marie, still youthful in the face and with vibrant red hair almost to his shoulders. The uniform looked good on him, especially those stars on his shoulder. Being promoted to the Fuhrer's right hand man had done him well - and kept him out of Stein's field. The two of them hadn't worked together since the War and for good reason.

It was, after all, thanks to Spirit that Stein knew so much about manipulating the soul via alchemy, whether he had been a willing participant or not.

"I didn't have much of a choice," Spirit admitted, his glare at Stein turning into a softer look at Marie, "but certain circumstances have come up."

"The witnesses," Marie replied, already commiserating with him. She was much more empathetic than he was. When Stein made no reaction, both soldiers looked at him. "Did you even read the file?"

Stein slid his tongue across his teeth behind his lips and squinted at the sun. That was a sufficient answer enough for them and they both sighed in aggravation. Of course he didn't. Stein read files only when they suited him and he knew more about the Vector Alchemist than anyone else in the military. They didn't have anything that he didn't already know and, even worse, they were lacking sufficient evidence. What else did he need to know?

"Trust me," Spirit added as they walked out of the train station, "I wouldn't be working with you if not for her."

Stein arched a bored eyebrow. "The Vector Alchemist?"

"My daughter," Spirit ground out irritably.

That was considerably more interesting than Stein anticipated. His other eyebrow rose in response, but he said nothing out loud. The Fuhrer had said that they had been made aware of Medusa's crimes somehow, which he'd figured was most likely through a witness, and it appeared as if the witness was his old colleague's daughter. Of course, if Spirit's daughter was able to recognize Medusa's work even a little bit, that meant…

"Your daughter is an alchemist," Stein blurted once his train of thought finished.

Spirit smiled, looking somewhat dazed. "She's absolutely brilliant, just like her mother."

"How is Kami doing these days?" Stein asked.

He was not deigned an answer. Both of them knew that Kami was somewhere in Xing, traveling the world in order to learn more about alchemy. She'd been gone for over a year. The last time Stein had seen Spirit's ex-wife, she'd been slinging a bag over her shoulders and telling him not to bother contacting her. He didn't know why she felt obliged to tell him that. He wouldn't have even if she hadn't told him. She knew that. Maybe it was action itself.

"Arrangements have been made for you at the Mirage hotel near HQ," Spirit said as if Stein hadn't spoken. He started to walk out of the train station and they followed him to a military vehicle that was parked outside. "I didn't think you'd want to stay in the dorms." Before Marie could say anything, he quickly added, "Only one room, I'm afraid, but two beds. Cliche, I know, but it was last minute. I'm sorry; I'll work to get it fixed as quickly as possible. I know that Stein is a terrible roommate."

Honestly, Stein had benefited quite a bit during all the times Spirit had crashed on his couch whenever Kami kicked him out, much to Spirit's own displeasure, but Marie would never have to worry about the same things as Spirit.

In fact, Marie smiled slightly at the implication. "I never had a problem with him."

As Stein put their suitcases in the back of the truck, he caught sight of Spirit shaking his head. Spirit had never been able to understand how Marie was able to live with Stein in peace. Along with Kami, the four of them had grown close during the war, the taint on their souls bonding them in ways that even Stein recognized as different and perhaps even important. It had also torn them apart in the end. Stein never wondered what their lives might have been if none of them had been shipped off to the frontlines, but he knew Marie did.

That kind of thing left a stain on a person. He did wonder if that was when her dreams about getting married and living happily ever after had started to dissolve.

Even though Spirit held the front passenger door open for her, Marie shook her head. "I'll take the back." She wiggled a foot in the air, looking small even in her military boots. "I'm smaller."

Spirit did not look exactly pleased at having Stein sit up front with him, but he didn't complain either. Marie hopped in the back while Stein slid in the front. He'd forced his tall body into odd and uncomfortable positions before, but Marie was all about being a mediator. He had a suspicious feeling that she was trying to force Stein and Spirit together so that they might mend the tattered remains of their old friendship. Stein honestly didn't know if it was worth it or if Spirit would be a willing participant.

"I'll drop you off so you can get settled," Spirit told them as he started the truck. "It's late and a school night for Maka, so we'll convene at HQ tomorrow at 8 and conduct Maka's interview during her study hall."

It struck Stein as interesting that they weren't jumping on things immediately, regardless of Maka being in school, but he said nothing. The rest of the drive was silent, which suited Stein. Smalltalk had never been one of his fortes. Manipulating previously unheard of and volatile alchemy on the other hand was, which made him both a better and dangerous fit for this mission. While he had known right from the get go that Medusa was a horrible person, she was also a brilliant alchemist and, horrific or not, he'd like to get a glimpse of her research before handing it over to the government. It wasn't like the government wasn't going to try to use it for their own benefit anyways.

They'd used Stein's alchemy research, after all, to dramatic effect.

Glancing into the rearview mirror, Stein caught Marie gazing at him, but she quickly averted her gaze to outside the window and the passing buildings. His fingers twitched on top of his thighs. How did it always seem like Marie knew when his thoughts were turning darker?


	2. Lunafaction

**Author's Notes:** I...didn't realize that I hadn't posted all of this yet. It's literally been written for months. Wow, I'm a genius. Stein would be proud. Some strong, triggering themes are starting to crop up. This is not a happy story. Medusa is not a good person. So basically, canon as hell. Unethical experiments on humans, animals, and the like.

* * *

 **there's something at work in my soul**  
 _chapter two: lunafaction_

* * *

While Marie showered in their hotel bathroom, which alone was decorated more than his own place, Stein sat down at the foot of his bed to finally pore through the file. It was indeed lacking in evidence, much thinner than both he and the government would've liked in order to find the Vector Alchemist, but there were some intriguing points. He was able to peer into the research that she had shown the higher ups and not him and determine where she had purposely mislead them or was vague on certain details. She'd painted a different picture to them than him, like a work of Impressionist art, whereas she had been vivid, detailed, and precise with him.

Not enough in his opinion, considering that she hadn't even given him the full picture of her research, secretive as she was. For good reason though, considering the crimes that she'd committed. The photos capturing the effects of her alchemy were vibrant enough to tell a much different story. He had known that her alchemy research was not as harmless as she tried to make it out to be, but he hadn't pictured it being so bloody. The red was enough to make his mind race wildly.

It wasn't an unpleasant feeling. Stein knew that should've worried him, but it just intrigued him further. He was a mad dog with a scent and blood made for an easy trail to follow. The more of a bloodtrail, the better and easier to find her. There would be another victim before they would catch her, of that Stein had no doubt, but he knew that it would upset Marie. She would want to catch the other woman before anyone else was hurt.

But Medusa had been out of the government's sight for ten months even with a stack of human and animal bodies piled at her feet. They needed a new lead, fresh blood, and a warm trail.

Honestly, Stein hadn't thought this would interest him in the slightest, but he found himself grinning a little.

When Marie stepped out of the bathroom, wearing soft yellow pajamas and drying her hair, she spotted his grin before he could wipe his face clean. "Finally getting excited for the hunt?" she asked without a hint of irony. She had known what he was like for so many years. It still secretly marveled him that she had stayed at his side for so long when very few people seemed capable of being around him for more than an hour. "I knew those pictures would pique your interest. They're so...gruesome."

"And very creative," Stein added.

Marie rolled her eye, but didn't comment on his choice of words. Most people would've shivered, Spirit included probably, but she had grown used to his ways, perhaps even comfortable. Staying together again felt normal in a strange way that he tried not to linger on. It suggested that he missed her, but then that would beg the question on why he never contacted her or answered any of her calls or letters after she moved out.

 _Focus on the pictures,_ a voice in his mind told him. He gripped the photos tightly and stared at them until it was like he was in the photos themselves and not in this world.

"We have an early and long day ahead of us tomorrow, so you should try to get some sleep," Marie told him as she settled into her bed. His eyes went to her despite his mind telling them no. She slipped her eyepatch off to set it on the nightstand, allowing him a brief glimpse of the ruined, patched up skin underneath before she turned off her light, slid under the covers, and rolled over. He jerked his gaze back to the photos. "Goodnight."

Stein didn't respond to her, but then she wouldn't expect him to. He returned his focus to the file, reading through it again. Eventually, he turned off the light on his side of the bed and moved to the desk where the small lamp wouldn't disturb her as much. He was able to find some loose leaf paper that he could write notes on, although that didn't stop him from making notations in the file as well. It helped him organize his mind, even though to anyone else his notes would look like gibberish. He doubted even Marie or Spirit would be able to understand them. Writing in shorthand and code was just second nature to him, as it was to all alchemists.

The minutes passed. The file became his entire world. Time didn't matter in that world, and so he lost himself in it without even realizing it.

* * *

(There is no such thing as a good night's sleep in Ishval. He spends most of his nights drifting in a half sleep where he flitters between dreams and reality. The dreams are never vivid, not like this hell, but he thinks that he should be grateful. Some soldiers have nightmares; all the other alchemists on the frontlines do. He's slipping in that half dream world when a blood curdling scream rips through the night and violently jerks him awake. Twisted up in his thin sheets, he tumbles off his cot onto the gritty sand and has to awkwardly untangle himself even as the camp alarms begin to sound.

Dressed in only his military pants that he mended himself and a dusty white shirt, Stein storms out of the tent and watches as other soldiers do the same. Most of them are running around in confusion in a half state of dress or with their service weapons, panicked but without a clue as to why. No one is giving orders when even the higher ups don't know what's going on yet. Only the people that sounded the alarms do, if that.

Stein is tugging on his gloves when he catches Spirit staggering out of his own tent in just a pair of black pants, his red hair a bedhead mess. Before Spirit thinks to put on more clothes, he asks, "What's going on?" Which is a ridiculous question to ask, considering that it's obvious that Stein only left his tent seconds ago too.

Before Stein can tell him that, a loud explosion on the left erupts and flames shoot into the air. Gunfire begins to pop after that. Men's shouts echo into the night. And then it hits him, like a gunshot to the chest. The scream that came to an abrupt halt soon after the alarms went off came from the south side of the camp, not where the explosion happened. The south side of the camp is where the female soldiers sleep. Where Marie sleeps.

Even though nearly every soldier is running towards the gunfire, their training trumping their fear, Stein bolts through the crowd, like a half blind, twisted version of that Frogger game Marie loves so much. He vaguely hears Spirit shouting after him, but Stein ignores him. He only thinks of Marie and that awful, musical scream. The sand isn't conducive for running and rocks make it painful while barefoot, but he ignores that as well. Marie - he has to get to Marie.

He could find his way to her tent in pitch black, even though it looks the same as everyone else's, but when he sees blood pooling out from one of the tents, a lone military booted foot sticking out, his mind slips and he freezes. His breathing stops until he realizes that the tent isn't Marie's or even Kami's. He swings his head around until he finds her tent and then rushes to it, ripping the flaps open, only to find it empty. It's in a complete disarray though, which isn't normal, because Marie is orderly whereas he is an organized disaster. He pants as he stares at the mess, his mind trying to come up with a logical, good reason for her tent looking like there was a struggle in it.

There isn't one. The enemy ambushed their camp at night. The alarms were too late.

Stein backs out of the tent, watching as one female soldier drags the body of her dead comrade out of the tent and a Lieutenant barks out orders for the rest still around them. For a moment, Stein can only see Marie, even though he knows that it isn't her. He spots Kami tying her hair back and storms over to her, grabbing her by the arm.

"Stein," Kami growls, glaring at him, "what the hell-?"

"Where is she?" Stein demands.

"What are you-?"

Stein cuts her off again. He doesn't have the time for this. " _Where is she_? Where is Marie?"

He knows that he shouldn't be worried about one mere soldier. His job as a soldier is the protect the entire unit; his job as an alchemist is to incapacitate the enemy. But tonight, he doesn't give a damn about his job. He didn't join the military to go to war, although he knew the chances of being deployed. He didn't join the military to kill people, although he can't rightly say that it upsets him. Those things about the military never truly bothered him - until he found out that Marie signed up.

Kami's eyes flicker around and widen when she comes to same conclusion that Marie is not there. She snaps her gaze back to Stein, who remains still and blank-faced. "I don't know."

Everyone is shouting and the gunfire throughout the camp is so loud, but Stein is still able to pick out another scream from the outskirts of the camp that he knows is different from the rest. It's not the same scream as before, but it's just as horrific. He's never heard her scream so fearfully before - surprised, sure, and angry, most definitely - but he knows that it's her and his heart leaps so hard that he's shocked that he doesn't choke on it. He lets go of Kami and dashes off in the direction of the scream and into the night.

"Stein, you can't go alone!" Kami yells after him. He doesn't care. He doesn't care that he causes her to swear and disobey orders from her commander to follow after him. He doesn't care that he's running barefoot and seemingly weaponless into danger that he doesn't know.

He only cares about Marie. Besides, he's never weaponless. His alchemy makes him a weapon.

Just outside of the camp, Stein makes out a few figures wearing black cloaks struggling with something - or rather someone. They're trying to drag Marie away, but she's fighting back viciously, kicking out so hard that a tiny bare foot connects with one of her attacker's faces and knocks him back. However, the one holding onto her throws her to the ground and she hits a large rock.

It's dark, but Stein sees red.

The first attacker goes down easily. He's barely back to his feet from Marie's kick when Stein grabs a hold of him from behind and sends a violent shock throughout his body. The human body is only capable of handling so many volts, as Stein has tested himself, and the man actually wets himself as he screams in pain and crumples twitching and smoking to the ground. Stein doesn't care.

Marie is crying out in between gasps as she struggles with the second attacker on top of her, a knife in his hand. The sounds are enough to shake him to his core and he loses sight of everything else. Stein rips the man away from her. This time though, when his alchemy takes charge, he produces a shock that is meant to do more than just cause bodily damage. He uses every bit of knowledge that he hides in the dark recesses of his mind to violently rip the man's very being apart at the seams. It's pain beyond pain, but not enough to kill him at first. It's torture and it's horrific. Stein doesn't care.

He shoots another charge through the man, so forceful and full of hate that it causes the man to practically implode, like every blood vessel in his body bursts, making a sound like a squelching _pop_. What's left of his body is flung into the stone wall of a mostly collapsed building, but not before blood sprays everywhere on Stein, Marie, and the sand. The fight from the camp behind them sounds quiet compared to Stein's heavy breathing and Marie's whimpers.

The energy of using such vicious alchemy causes Stein to collapse to his knees, but he focuses on Marie and drags himself over to her. She's only wearing a once white shirt and underwear, most likely having been caught unawares while she was readying herself to sleep. It's stained in blood, but not all of it from the attacker Stein just killed. She's holding her face in her hands and Stein's mind reels when he notices blood slipping out from between her fingers and underneath her palms down her neck.

"Marie," he barely breathes her name, but his voice causes her to tremble.

"Stein," she chokes on his name, her voice muffled underneath her hands. She curls in on herself, like she's trying to hide how naked she is, but he doesn't look away from the hands on her face. She could've been completely naked and he wouldn't have noticed right now.

Pulling her up to rest in the crook of his arm, he puts a hand on top one of hers and she whimpers again, but she moves slightly into his touch. It's a marvel even to him that the same hands that are so soft and gentle with her just caused horrors and violence beyond measure. It amazes him that Marie is so willing to trust those hands when he sometimes thinks he can't trust them himself.

"You have to let me see the wound." Her blood stains his gloves further and trickles down the side of his hand.

"No," she cries out, "you can't- I can't-"

"Marie," he says quietly, and even as she tries to shake her head, she allows him to slowly pry her fingers away from her face. She's terrified now, but Stein doesn't think he knew what terror truly was until he saw the man over top Marie with a knife.

He's wrong, of course. Terror is the ice that runs deep in his veins when he finally pulls a hand away from her face and sees the ruined eye underneath. A once beautiful golden eye that will never see again. Tears spill out of from under the hand that shields her one remaining good eye. He sees the damage, the blood, the darkness that she sees when she looks up at him. And he knows that nothing has ever compared to this moment because he has never seen someone so vulnerable and broken in his life and he never wants to see it again.

He thought he did. He thought it would be intriguing to break someone down like this.

But not this. Not her. Not Marie. _Not Marie._

"Franken," the words tumble out of her mouth, "I can't see with my left eye. I can't _see_."

Stein is fit to end the war right here right now. His soul seems to hurt and he hates it. He wants it gone. He wants them all gone. He wants to kill the man that did this to her all over again. He cares. Goddamnit, he cares.)

* * *

Snapping his eyes open, Stein sat up from the desk and rubbed his head. Some time in the night, he must've slumped over and finally succumbed to sleep. He ran his fingers through his prematurely gray hair, the fringes hanging in his eyes, and took a deep breath, trying to focus his thoughts on the notes sitting before him.

It had been a very long time since he had thought about that night. Why had it come to him now? Was it Marie's resurgence or something else?

An emotion that felt strangely like guilt gnawed at the back of his mind, and he forced himself to his feet and into the bathroom where he almost emptied the contents of his stomach. Not even staring at those violent and vicious crime scene photos had affected him as much as that memory. Maybe it was seeing the scars under Marie's eyepatch the night before that had brought it up. He'd been so careful when stitching her back up in Ishval, the only one qualified to give her such intimate and intensive medical care on short notice, but she'd hid it from him ever since. The scars were old now, older than the ones on his chest and face.

He was good at giving people scars.

But he had been so delicate with her in a way that he could not be with anyone else. He didn't know if he could still be that way now or if the years they'd spent apart had allowed that part of him to fade away. To be honest, he probably had more in common with Medusa than Marie these days, which was why it made twisted sense that he'd be the one to find her.

Taking a shower was one of his better decisions. The hot water washed away any stray thoughts and by the time he was done, he was focused on the mission again, his mind clear of the past. He couldn't be distracted by anyone or anything if he was going to one up the Vector Alchemist.

When he stepped out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist, Marie was out of bed, staring a few inches away at the collogue he had created using the crime scene photos and notes on the wall. It looked like a complete disaster, but was in fact organized very well according to his mind and thoughts. Marie's one eye was wide and her mouth was open in shock as she held her chin with one hand and was pouring over the notes with the pointer finger of her other hand.

"I can't believe you did all of this last night," Marie proclaimed without even looking over at him, having heard the shower turn off and the door open. "Did you even sleep?" She glanced at the bed, probably noting that the pillows and blankets had been left undisturbed, and then at the desk with the chair pushed back. "Please tell me you didn't sleep at the desk when there is a perfectly good bed right-"

That was when she finally chose to look at him and cut herself off, her eye somehow widening even further as she outright gawked at him. It wasn't like she'd never seen him in such a state of undress before (being roommates had made that almost impossible) and she reacted the same exact way. It didn't phase him in the slightest. The human body was just that - a human body - whether it had clothes on it or not. Upon realizing that she was staring at him though, blush flooded her cheeks and she started to panic.

"Stein, you're naked!" A very obvious description, but one she couldn't seem to help.

"I'd assumed that you'd want me cleaned and refreshed for the meeting at HQ and the interview," Stein replied, not sounding a hint sarcastic. "One typically showers sans clothes. I'm not that abnormal."

Marie spun on her heels and stared determinedly at the door, folding her arms across her chest. "Please put on your clothes."

"Do I have to wear the uniform?" Stein asked as he began to rummage through his belongings. He took his time, enjoying the way Marie squirmed the longer he stayed unclothed. It was a very different sort of uncomfortable squirming than he was used to making people do. It was humorous. It wasn't...scary. He was used to people being scared of him, but Marie wasn't terrified of the prospect of him being naked so much as embarrassed. He had forgotten how much he enjoyed making her blush.

"I don't care what you wear," Marie told him, "so long as you wear _something_."

Minutes later, once he was presentable, Stein cleared his throat and Marie hesitantly turned back around to face him, like she was afraid that he'd be standing there with the towel pooled at his feet. She'd never seen him in that state of undress before. He refused to wonder if she had ever wanted to or not. She nodded her head, cheeks still pink, and then gathered her uniform before darting to change in the bathroom. Unlike her, the closest he had ever seen her to being undressed was when back in Ishval the night she lost her eye.

That was a dark place. He didn't want to go down that thought path again. Instead he walked over to his wall of evidence and put on his glasses, focusing on the task at hand. This was going to take him on a darker path, but he was comfortable with that.

* * *

Feeling better about not being in uniform, Stein watched as soldiers walked past him with thinly veiled disdain on their faces. They thought he was a plain civilian visiting Eastern Headquarters for some reason. Many soldiers felt that civilians had no place working with the military for any reason - that they lacked courage or something else. Maybe they thought themselves better than people outside of the military. That was a side effect of a military government. Stein didn't care though.

He could've sent half of these soldiers to scrub toilets for disrespecting him if he ever pulled rank, not that he gave a damn about technically being a Colonel.

At the moment, however, he was seriously considering it when a Lieutenant-Colonel began to chat up Marie, getting far too close for comfort. The man even put a hand on her arm, like he was familiar with her, even though she clearly wasn't comfortable and was only listening to him out of politeness. Stein could tell from the terse smile on her face and the way she had her arms folded that she wasn't happy. He could pick her genuine smiles out every time. Maybe he could get away with hitting the other soldier with a shock of alchemy. Stein was, after all, higher ranked than him…

"Ah, sorry for being late," Spirit sighed as he breezed into the room, sliding his fingers through his hair. He froze when he saw the soldier with a hand on Marie and then narrowed his eyes. "I don't believe that you're needed here, Lieutenant-Colonel Buttataki."

The man turned red in the face, saluted, and then scurried out of the room. It was one thing for Stein to have said something being a Colonel, but it was quite another getting told to scram by General Albern. For a moment, Stein didn't see the girl crazy redhead that had once been his best friend. There was something in Spirit that made the Fuhrer pick him as his right hand man, after all.

After taking a deep breath, Spirit smiled at them, back to normal. "Did you rest well?"

"Medusa is trying to make the perfect chimera," Stein said instead.

Spirit damn near choked on his tongue and even Marie let out a squeak. "Damnit, Stein, not in public." He shot Stein a glare, which Stein ignored, and then waved for them to follow him. They hurried to the room that Spirit had secured as his office while in Eastern with Spirit slamming the door the second Marie stepped inside. "In case you weren't aware, the Vector Alchemist's...activities haven't been made public knowledge yet."

Stein sat down in a chair and leaned back precariously, staring Spirit down. "Hm, I wonder why. Not good advertisement for the State Alchemist Program? 'Join the program where you can fulfill your wildest, illegal dreams.' It has a pleasant ring to it." The grin that split across his face was more vicious than it should've been, but instead of making Spirit shiver, it only made the other man scowl.

"You would know," Spirit snapped.

"The government pays me quite well for my research," Stein pointed out. "Who lacks humanity: the one doing the horrifying research or the one demanding it?" When Spirit couldn't answer, Stein let the grin slide away from its place, putting a neutral expression back on, the one that made people more comfortable. He liked getting under Spirit's skin, but with Marie looking at him like she was disappointed, it wasn't as much fun. Besides, it wasn't the point. "The same could be said of Medusa. Does the government want to capture her to stop her or use her?"

"Do you expect an actual answer?" Spirit asked, as Stein knew full well that even if Spirit knew the answer, he wouldn't give it. The government liked its secret.

Stein shook his head. "I don't need one."

He already knew. They had him in their greedy, dastardly clutches, didn't they?

Marie stepped in between them. "Moral crisis aside, we need to find her and stop her before anyone else is killed in the name of science." Her eyes flicked to Stein, but then returned to Spirit. No one had died in his experiments, but none of the human subjects that the government had allowed him had enjoyed them either. There was a very thin line when it came to science, one that Stein often toed and even stuck his foot over every now and then. Only Marie and Kami had ever called him out on it; the government encouraged it. "So what's this about the perfect chimera?"

"It's obvious, isn't it?" Stein asked, looking from Marie to Spirit. When neither of them responded, he sighed. He sometimes forgot that they didn't know much about alchemy, despite having been around him for years. He hated having to explain things though; it involved way too much talking. "Starting a few months back, there was a string of animals vanishing - lost dog and 'have you seen my cat?' signs and the like - which the MPs obviously didn't care about. You'll be able to find the reports. People are sentimental."

His words suggested that he was not. He thought of the box of Marie's belongings in his closet that he'd never thrown away, the picture of him and Spirit with the redhead's arm slung around his shoulders the day they had graduated from the Academy, the letters Marie had sent him that he never responded to. But no, he was not the sentimental type. He just had better things to do than deal with those things.

"Those animals never came back home." Stein watched as Marie's face fell. Likely she was picturing all the sad children who lost their beloved pets. He'd never had a pet himself. His parents had enough foresight to not get their young son a pet after finding him dissecting a dead bird. "There was an uprise in animal carcasses being found throughout the city around that same time. I know because I called Animal Services this morning and checked. Apparently, it was some pretty gruesome work."

"Similar to the victims'?" Spirit asked.

Stein shrugged his shoulders. "They didn't take pictures, but most of the employees had trouble keeping their lunch down." Even the man on the phone had gagged when Stein had pressed for details. He would've liked pictures so he could examine the damage himself, but some people didn't have as much foresight as him. Or as strong of a stomach apparently. Even Spirit and Marie looked a tad queasy from thinking about it. "The trauma done to the animals was violent, bloody, and left most of them unrecognizable, like their human counterparts."

Sitting down in a chair, Marie fiddled with her eyepatch. She used to do that when she was scared; he wondered if it meant the same thing now. Likely she knew that Medusa Gorgon wasn't just a mere threat or rogue alchemist on the loose. She was a serious danger to society. He hadn't even gotten to the terrifying part though. "So what changed? The government knew that her alchemy was centered on chimeras. She wouldn't have to hide that, even if..." Marie bit her bottom lip. "Even if her experiments were heinous."

Blinking slowly behind his glasses, Stein regarded Marie for a moment. Was that what she truly thought of his own alchemy experiments? It was true that some of what he had done could be considered atrocious. He'd sacrificed a lot for his research, not just countless nights of sleep. She had never condemned him for it before, but then she had been extremely upset when it had come to light that Stein had used Spirit in a few experiments. She hadn't yelled at him like Kami had, but she hadn't spoken with him for almost a week. Her silence had hurt much worse than any yelling. Once more, he wondered if that was the true reason why she left.

"Like any scientist, she moved on to the next phase of her experiments," Stein said in a flat voice. "Human test subjects."

Spirit bunched his eyebrows together. "Trying to combine humans and animals? That's the perfect chimera?"

"No," Stein replied, not gently either. Spirit huffed in irritation at being shot down. "It's clear that she was trying to combine humans with animals, perhaps splicing animal DNA into humans to give them animalistic traits. The first three victims were practically covered in animal blood; she began to be more careful after that, but trace elements are still there. It's impossible to wash away all of the blood." He scratched the scruff on his chin. He had forgotten to shave this morning. "Did you know there are some alchemists that believe you can give an animal the ability to speak if you combine a human and animal just right? The vocal chords of the animals would literally have to be replaced with a human's though."

That statement garnered him shivers from both Spirit and Marie. The idea of taking a human and blending them with an animal was so beyond most people's darkest imaginations. It took away the very being a human. Even if they were able to retain most of their human-like behavior, could they even be considered human anymore? And that was only if the experiments were successful. Such alchemy would've been horrifyingly painful, the shock of which had probably killed the first few victims.

It was terribly intriguing and exquisite. Thoughts about what those humans had gone through had plagued Stein's mind and kept him up for half of the night while he was studying the case file.

"Each victim was missing for at least three days before their bodies were found," Marie said quietly.

"Three days of methodical experimenting," Stein confirmed.

"Three days of monstrous torture," Marie snapped, as if trying to remind him of his own humanity. It had been a long time since anyone had tried to do that. A lot of awful things could be done in the name of science. Sometimes he didn't know if it was worth looking back at the line he'd most likely already crossed, but then he would be like the Vector Alchemist. He wasn't like her, was he? "Does she even have a soul?"

"I can figure that out when we find her, if you'd like," Stein said, almost like a boy offering his coat to a girl on a chilly day. Back in the day, Spirit would've drawled at how romantic Stein could be, but he was too busy lost in thought about the case.

Marie's eyes shined brightly. She was a soldier and she had seen war and many terrible things and she had lived with him during some rough periods, but she didn't try to hide her emotions. She used them. It was an admirable if not confusing trait. "She tossed them out like they were...like they were trash."

"They were failed experiments."

"They were people! With families that loved them and miss them!" Marie jumped to her feet, her one golden eye glaring at him hotly. Even Spirit flinched. Her hands clenched into fists at her side, like she wanted to punch him in the face. He wouldn't have stopped her. Hell, he deserved it, although he had never hurt her. At least he didn't think he had. Maybe his frankness bothered her, but she knew what he was like and had never pushed him to change before.

Still, Stein conceded, nodding his head. "Yes, they were people."

Sensing the change in the room, Spirit cleared his throat and cut in, "But after victim eleven, there weren't any traces of animal blood. You said it was impossible to get rid of all of it."

"It is," Stein agreed. "As careful as she is, she's messy as well. Not sloppy, but you can't avoid leaving a mess behind with that kind of alchemy."

"So what's her endgame?" Spirit demanded. "Did she give up and just start losing it?"

"She most definitely didn't give up," Stein scoffed. An alchemist with a mind like Medusa's wouldn't just give up after a handful of failures. She would press on until she succeeded or was caught, which could mean only one thing. "She must have been able to create some sort of animal and human chimera."

"I'm pretty sure I'd notice a half human/half dog hybrid running around town," Spirit responded dryly.

Stein shook his head. "We have no idea what they would even look like or how they behave. For all we know, they could blend right in with society." They weren't getting it, despite the fact that Stein was practically spelling it out for them. Marie was quiet. She had sat down again and was staring at him, like she could peer into his mind and find all the answers she needed. Maybe she could. She had always been good at reading him. "More likely, she's keeping them with her. She can't let them loose, lest they lead the military to her, but you don't throw away a success like that. She's too obsessed with her research to destroy damning evidence."

Groaning, Spirit tossed his head back and put his hands on his hips. He wasn't enjoying this exercise in thought. Stein supposed he could've told them outright, but they wouldn't have been able to understand. It had taken him hours of studying the photos and evidence for him to piece together the grisly tale Medusa had left behind. When he had finally realized what she was doing, his heart and mind had begun to race against one another. Chimeras were on thing - combining animals and humans was another - but this…

This was one for the record books that would force a lot a lot of people to question the goodness of man.

"Animals to humans with animals to humans without animals…" Marie murmured, mostly to herself. "A new phase." She connected eyes with Stein. "Her experiments evolved again." Pleased that she had been able to follow him, Stein actually smiled a little, although there was nothing to smile about. It wasn't a cheerful smile though; he didn't do those. She frowned. "But to what?"

"A perfect chimera," Stein answered, "a _human_ chimera."

Spirit paled. "What does that…?"

"A chimera is a creature composed of two or more animals," Stein said, "and humans are animals, are they not?"

"That's not…" Spirit shook his head, refusing to believe the evidence even though it was right in front of him. No one wanted to look at it that way though. It wasn't just unspeakable; it was unheard of. Chimeras were animals, but people forgot so often that humans were a species as well that could be experimented on and dissected. "That's absurd - revolting - it's… It can't be done."

"A lot of what people have accomplished in science was once considered impossible," Stein pointed out. "What is science if not testing what can't be done?"

Marie put a hand to her mouth in horror as she watched Stein stand up and retrieve Spirit's copy of the case file from his desk. He opened it and flipped to the pictures of the twelfth and thirteenth victims. Out of all the bodies found, these were the most degraded and destroyed, completely unrecognizable. They had been found separately and on different days, but the time of death had suggested they died roughly around the same time. Though neither of them wanted to look at the photos again, they both walked over to stand on either side of them and look down.

"The DNA for both victims was completely trashed and we were unable to identify either of them using it, despite Victim Twelve, Larrson, being a convicted felon." Stein tapped the photo of a man who was barely recognizable as a man. Only a few body parts remained intact. With all that blood, they should've found an easy match, but had been left using other means to identify the victim. "Victim Thirteen, Wright, was similar, although the damage sustained to the body was not quite as severe and he was left more intact."

"So she did something to their DNA and blood," Spirit sighed. "We already know she's doing that."

"It's not just that."

Stein found photos of the victims before they had been kidnapped, experimented on, and killed. Though a former criminal, Larrson had found happiness in his family after being released. He was smiling brightly and waving in the photo taken at some backyard barbeque, looking normal as could be. Wright, on the other hand, was single in that perpetual sort of twenties way, unlucky in love while all his friends were married. The two victims hadn't known each other or ever crossed paths, being thirty years apart in age and living completely opposite lives. In his photo, he was sitting nervously in a booth at a bar, clutching a beer like it was a lifeline.

"Look at Wright's left hand in the two photos," Stein told them. "Tell me what you see."

Both of them leaned forward to examine the photos more carefully, their faces writ with concentration. Marie even traced around the man's hand in the photo where he was alive, like she might be able to send sort of comfort to him in the past. Unlucky in love herself, she might've felt a connection with the victim. Her empathy was one of her greatest strengths, one that he would never be able to understand, but he thought it hurt her at times too.

And then Marie took in a sharp breath of air. "The tan line on his ring finger - that shouldn't be there. He was single, never married, and that photo was taken just a week before his disappearance. There's no ring or line."

"And yet that hand is clearly connected to his arm and body," Stein added. "Larrson, on the other hand…"

"Married for twenty years," Spirit confirmed, "and the wife said he never took his ring off. That's why she refused to believe it was him at first. No ring was found."

"Oh my god." Marie jolted upright, her face nearly as pale as it had been the night her eye was taken from her. She had witnessed horrors before - had them done unto her - but that didn't keep her from being shocked any less. Her gaze slowly swung from the pictures to Stein's face and he could see in her eyes that she knew that he was right. He would never lie to her. "That's not Wright's hand; it's Larrson's. She combined them."

The experiment had only been a partial success, which was a failure in Medusa's book. It had probably killed Larrson in the process while Wright had died slower but eventually. She'd thrown them in the trash, disgusted by the lack of proper results, and she didn't care if people saw them. It had drawn notice to her, which confused Stein after all the lengths she'd gone to vanish and hide. If she hadn't been so careless with the victims, the government might never have gotten wise to what she was doing and sent him after her. What was she doing now? He had to know, not just to stop her, but out of his own morbid curiosity.

He knew better than to voice that thought out loud.


	3. Dulcify

**Author's Notes:** I...thought that I had posted all of this on here. But I was wrong. So so wrong.

* * *

 **there's something at work in my soul**  
 _chapter three: dulcify_

* * *

Spirit looked as if he would've preferred if Stein wasn't even in the room with them, but let out an exaggerated sigh as he swept a hand towards Stein. "Darling, you probably don't remember him, but this is-"

"The Soul Stitching Alchemist!" Maka Albern exclaimed excitedly, rocking back and forth on the balls of her feet. She had intelligent green eyes, Spirit's eyes, and a big smile on her face. Though she had Kami's hair and alchemy abilities, her smile was definitely her father's. He wasn't smiling right now, looking even more displeased by Maka's excitement. "Every alchemist knows him."

Stein quirked an eyebrow at Marie, who wore a little indulgent smile on her face. It appeared as if his solitary confinement in his research lab hadn't kept him from the world. More than a few times, alchemists that weren't in the State Program had come knocking on his door, begging to be taken under his wing or helped in any small way. It was ridiculous, of course. Stein didn't do apprentices and absolutely abhorred the idea of someone getting in his way or taking up his time. Did they expect him to teach them? He was an alchemist, not a professor.

"Oh, Maka, you're growing up so fast," Marie gushed as Maka rushed forward to throw her arms around Marie. The two were of the same height, despite Marie being older and Maka still growing. Stein actually raised his other eyebrow at the action. He hadn't realized that Marie was still familiar with Spirit's daughter. It appeared as if she and Spirit had stayed in closer contact than he'd realized, despite not having seen each other in a while. Not really comfortable around kids, he had always opted to stay out of the way whenever Spirit and Kami had brought Maka around and hadn't seen her since she was a few feet shorter.

"I didn't know you were coming, too, Miss Marie!" Maka's enthusiasm and joy was contagious (well, to everyone else at least), but it felt strange after such a dark morning filled with such horrifying revelations. Marie must have been enjoying this though. She deserved it. Her smile was genuine, making her practically glow. He'd forgotten how bright she could be when she was happy.

"I'm so sorry that it's under these awful circumstances," Marie sighed. She pulled back to look the other girl in the face and lifted a hand to smooth her bangs away from her face. "I promise we'll go out for dinner or lunch."

Maka nodded her head and then untangled herself from Marie. She turned to wave a hand at a sullen-looking white-haired boy who was sulking in the background. With the type of reluctance that Stein understood, the boy pulled his hands out from his pockets and slunk over to them. "This is Soul, my best friend. He was there too when we…"

"When we saw that witch of a woman," Soul finished for her. He had shockingly sharp teeth and even sharper red eyes. For a moment, Stein thought to question whether or not Soul was actually a chimera, but he kept the intrusive thought in check. Instead, there were other questions that needed to be ask.

"You saw her?" Stein demanded. "You actually saw the Vector Alchemist?" Maka and Soul glanced at each other uncomfortably before turning back to Stein and nodding their heads. Stein shot Spirit a look. "Why wasn't that in the file at all?"

"Because officially there are no firsthand witnesses, just the poor people that found the bodies," Spirit explained as he sat down in a school chair. "The Fuhrer wants as little civilian knowledge of the attacks as possible to be out in the open."

Maka huffed as she plopped down in the chair beside him. "I'm going to be a State Alchemist soon, Papa! I won't be a civilian then."

A thirteen year-old taking the State Alchemist exam? Well, there were stranger things in the world. If she was as talented as Kami, then perhaps she had a fighting chance, but Stein hoped that it would take her a few more years. He had been eager to join the State Alchemist program at one point in order to gain access to better research materials and funds. It had cost him more than he'd expected though not altogether unwilling to pay. Sacrifices would always have to be made in the name of science.

Spirit side-eyed his daughter, looking like he wished more than anything that Maka would forget her dreams to become a State Alchemist, and then turned to Stein. "There were also serious concerns that Medusa might try to...eliminate any loose ends, considering how devoted to secrecy she's been."

"I could take her," Maka grumbled under her breath as she folded her arms across her chest and sulked in her seat. Her best friend sat down and gazed at her uneasily, looking almost like he was thinking the same thing as Spirit with a furrowed brow and slight frown on his face. She definitely had her mother's fiery nature; combined with the same ambition and energy that Spirit had and she was probably very good at getting into trouble.

Stein dropped into a chair across from the kids, the chair comically small for him, and leaned forward intently over a desk. His gaze must have been too intense because Maka blinked her big eyes and Soul stiffened, but he forced it to soften when Marie laid her hand on his arm briefly as she sat down next to him. It was only for a second though before she pulled it away and folded her hands on top of the desk.

"What did you see?" Stein questioned.

"Well, I guess we didn't see much," Maka began, gnawing on her bottom lip. "We were walking back to my place from soccer practice when Soul heard something in the alley."

"It sounded like some sort of...squelching sound?" Soul said, closing his eyes as he attempted to remember the scene. "Kind of like when you step in something gross."

"Like blood and entrails," Stein added, probably not one of his more helpful comments. Both Spirit and Marie winced while the two kids gave distinctly distraught looks to one another. Stein took in a breath and sat up straight. It had been a long time since he'd been forced to deal with kids. Hell, he hadn't known how to interact with them when he had been a kid himself.

"I figured it was a stray dog getting into the trash or something," Soul continued, "but then there was a crackling sound and-"

"A bright light!" Maka interrupted, her green eyes shining. That was a familiar look, one that he could recognize and understand. It was the one Kami got whenever she used her alchemy, the one Stein felt whenever his research took a new turn. "But not just any light - it wasn't a glow or anything. It looked like lightening almost, except that it was red. I knew it was alchemy right away."

Soul shrugged his shoulders. "I thought she was just being the same old alchemy geek that she always is. I mean, alchemy makes a blue light, not red, doesn't it?"

"For the most part, yes, but there are exceptions," Stein explained. Now he was sounding like a teacher. Spirit raised an eyebrow at him, looking close to being amused, which was dangerous, considering that it had the potential of irritating Stein. Maka looked completely rapt though, staring at him unblinkingly, while Soul appeared only mildly interested and bored. At least he was trying to - his gaze was too focused. "Mine is white and the Vector Alchemist is the one of only two currently recorded alchemists with red alchemy."

There had been a few others in the past, none of them good. The only other alchemist with a style similar to Medusa's was currently rotting in prison. Stein remembered him from the Ishval War, his alchemy only good for destruction and death, which was perfect for a military government that lusted after those things. His alchemy had been the color of blood, anger, and violence. Stein had always known when that alchemist was sent on missions because of the red lightening in the distance and the explosions. He had been a terror to the people of Ishval and even to many of his fellow soldiers, but the higher ups sure had liked him.

One might have expected the two of them to get along, considering their penchant for mayhem, but Stein had loathed the man's abilities. His alchemy was so chaotic and the man had never taken precautions to watch out for friendly fire. The one time they had been put on a mission together, the man's reckless alchemy had caused the side of a building to nearly collapse on top of Marie. It had taken both Spirit and Kami to drag Stein off of the idiot, who was left lying on the ground bleeding and laughing.

The first time he witnessed the Vector Alchemist's alchemy, Stein had thought back to the wild grin on that alchemist's face as he was carted off to prison following a speedy trial after he murdered five superior officers. He had known right then and there that Medusa was dangerous - and he had done nothing about it except take a look at her research. What kind of person did that make him? People had died and he had been too absorbed by the alchemy to care. He still might be, if he was in the mood to be honest with himself.

"Even though it was red, I knew it was alchemy," Maka insisted. "We snuck up to get a closer look-"

"Which I argued against," Soul interjected.

Maka elbowed Soul in the side. "And that was when we saw her. She was wearing a hood, but when she produced her alchemy one last time, I got a look at her face."

Blonde hair with twisting braids, sharp, yellow-gold almost snake-like eyes, a cutting, cold smile that made people want to shiver. Attractive even, as long as one didn't look closely enough and see the monster behind that smiling face. Stein knew her face well enough. She wasn't the type of person that was easily forgotten.

"Did you see anything else?" Stein asked. "Hear anything?"

Soul shook his head. "No, she was silent and quick, like she was busy and too lost in her mind thinking."

"But not distracted," Maka added. "She was...efficient - you know, like when you're practicing alchemy and you feel like you're right on the edge of a new transmutation and it's the only thing in the world for you."

It was very reckless of Medusa to destroy evidence at the scene of a dump site, especially when that evidence was a eviscerated human body, but that was what Maka's and Soul's testimonies, along with the blood spatter, suggested. Stein couldn't fully understand why she wasn't wrecking the bodies in private before throwing them out. It did confuse matters and kept blood evidence away from where she was performing the actual experiments. Many of the reports on the bodies had reported that the "attacks" took place at the scenes where the bodies were found.

Without knowing that they were actually human test subjects, everyone had assumed they were just murder victims. Stein knew what Marie would say if he said that out loud. They weren't "just murder victims"; they were human beings with souls and lives. Well, not anymore. They were dead. Their bodies could still be of use though, if he examined them more closely. Medusa's way of dumping evidence was dangerous and had to be done quickly, which left a larger margin for error.

Hadn't he warned her that pushing her alchemy tests beyond their limits too soon would lead to complications? Of course, he hadn't known at the time that her experiments would involve humans, but still, alchemy abuse always grated on his nerves.

"She didn't see us either," Maka told them. "We hid across the street for almost an hour before we went back and she was gone."

"No clue how she left," Soul said. "The alley was a dead end and the fire escape ladder was on the second floor."

"A lack of exits isn't a problem for an experienced alchemist," Stein pointed out. "I'm sure when we go to the scene, we'll find evidence of alchemy on one of the building walls."

While Soul harrumphed, Maka looked properly abashed. She either didn't know what transmutation circle Medusa could've used to escape through a brick wall or she hadn't considered it. A lack of knowledge left room for doubt to creep in, something she could not afford to have if she was planning on attempting to take the State Alchemist Exam any time soon. Stein hoped she waited. He could sense greatness in her, but he had a feeling her rashness could get the better of her right now.

"When we walked into the alley, we didn't see anything at first, but the smell…" Soul licked his dry lips and then shuddered. "Then I saw a hand lying on the ground by the dumpster."

"It was…" Tears filled up Maka's eyes. Even though he was trying to look cool, Soul took one of her hands in his. No longer was she the feisty girl ready to fight a rogue alchemist, but a thirteen year-old girl who saw something beyond horrifying. Stein tried to think of how he would've reacted to finding such a bloodied and broken body when he was her age: intrigued, frightened, senses overwhelmed. He didn't have the same patience then as he did now. "It was awful. I didn't know people were capable of such terrible things. That's not what alchemy is for!"

Marie smiled encouragingly and reached out to pat both of their hands. Spirit went to pull her into a hug, but she flinched and leaned further into Soul, causing her father to look put out. Stein did not have the heart to tell Maka that this was exactly what the government wanted alchemy for. That was something she would have to find out the hard way for herself, just as he had. She'd only been a little kid when the war had started and when her parents had been shipped off to Ishval. She hadn't known the horrors that alchemists were capable of until now.

* * *

The alley looked sadly ordinary during the day. Whoever was on the crime scene clean up crew had done a brilliant job, to the point where he wondered if they had an alchemist on the team. It would be helpful to have someone that could work with blood in a position that dealt with blood every day. Unfortunately, that meant that any evidence that he could have hoped to find was most likely gone. He poked around the trash cans anyways; anything would be better than facing Marie's worried glances.

At first, he had thought that it was perhaps his silence after the interview, but then she knew that he was prone to long silences while he was thinking and it had never bothered her before. Maybe it was his lack of empathy that was causing problems. Was she looking at him differently? When she looked at him, did she see not him but perhaps Medusa? It wasn't crazy to think that he might fall into the same, frightening path. One could say that he already had. Spirit probably would.

Crouching down, Stein examined a spot in the brick of the building on the left and then pointed. "See here: signs of alchemy. She escaped through this building. Better choice since the renovations are currently in stasis."

Marie looked at it and nodded her head, but he could tell that her mind was elsewhere. This wasn't anything new, just another piece of evidence that confirmed how slippery Medusa was. It didn't help them. He tried to find something else, anything, but nothing but a boring dead-end alley stood before him.

"Stein," she finally said, not looking at him, "what happened to you?"

Stein gazed at her blankly. "Nothing. You know everything that's ever happened to me."

"No," Marie replied, "I don't." When she turned to face him, he caught more than just hurt in her eyes - there was fire in them - and he knew that there was no way he could get out of this confrontation. "Please don't lie to me like that. It's patronizing. I may not be an alchemist, but I'm not an idiot."

"I know that," Stein said quietly, feeling as if he'd been slapped in the face. Marie was good at that. He'd seen her knock a man almost twice her weight out cold before, but it had always been her way with words that had cut him deeper than any knife. "But I'm not lying to you either. You know me, so you know what happened."

"The scar on your face - I thought maybe you had a lab accident. You would do the craziest things and I figured something got out of hand." When Marie frowned, it wasn't just something sad; it was painful. Stein couldn't help but think that it broke other people's hearts to see her frown, but it only made his stomach turn slightly. Maybe his heart didn't work properly anymore. "But then I saw the scar across your chest this morning and it was so big and I didn't know - I didn't want to think…"

"It's not as bad as you think," Stein reasoned, even though he knew the words were hollow. He didn't know why he said them. He had never been one for uttering meaningless words of comfort. It was a pointless gesture that he found hurt more than helped.

Marie stepped forward until she was close enough for him to smell her faint perfume. Back when they were roommates, she would joke that if she had to wear some clunky uniform, the least she could do was smell good. For some reason, her closeness made his mind race, but he didn't know what for. It was like he was thinking without thinking. But then she took his large hands in her tiny ones, moving his palms up, and his entire mind just stopped.

"The only time I've seen you without gloves since Central was this morning and I didn't get a good look."

Stein looked down at her. "Too distracted by other things?"

"Stop it, Stein," Marie reprimanded sharply. "Stop deflecting. You always do that."

She was right. He did a lot of deflecting. But it wasn't for the same reasons as others. He deflected because he knew that people wouldn't like what they found if he told them the truth. He didn't deflect to hide things; he deflected so that people wouldn't see the emptiness behind him - that he wasn't hiding anything. There were no secret, heart-wrenching, conflicted emotions. There was no tragic backstory. There was no regret. He knew that would make people uncomfortable, perhaps frighten them, even Marie, who had been with him for so long.

Then again, she had left too in the end, hadn't she? He had given her too little in return for all that he took and she had left him, rightly so. He would never begrudge her for that.

Slowly, she began to peel one of his gloves off. The urge to rip his hand away filled him - the desire to snap at her that it was none of her business, that she had no right to be so worried about him when she had been out of his life for years, that she was wrong to look down on him with pity or care. He curled his fingers slightly. But he kept his mouth shut and he let her take the glove off. A stronger part of him was more than relieved to show her these scars and let her hold his hand, as pathetic as it sounded.

It reminded him that he was human when this hunt and case was threatening to allow him to forget again.

He had done a lot of awful and unforgivable things the last time he'd forgotten that, even for the briefest of moments. He'd willingly destroyed one of the most important relationships in his life without a care. He did not think he could walk out into the light again if he fell into that line of thought.

Once she took the glove completely off of his hand, she held it tightly in her hand as she held onto his with her pointer finger and thumb. A shuddering inhale of breath went through her chest. With her other hand, she traced the crisscrossing scars on his palm and back of his hand. They were pale and faint, a sign of their age, but they were still there. None of his scars ever went away, just as Marie's hadn't.

"What did you do to yourself, Stein?" Marie asked him, her voice barely more than a whisper. He half expected a tear or two to slip out of her eye and onto his palm, but it didn't happen. He should've known better; she was stronger than that. "Why?"

"I didn't have test subjects and my research was stalled," Stein explained as frankly as possible. It would do no good to keep things from her, even if he wanted. She would pry it out of him eventually and it would hurt her just the same. "And then I realized that I had a test subject in myself."

He didn't understand how she could feel so much for people. When they had been younger, before the War, back when he could at least pretend to be innocent, he used to think that she was trying to feel for the both of them. It had to be painful. She was the type of person that cried during movies about animals, that used to daydream about falling in love and living a happily ever after, the woman that stepped in to defend others without a moment's hesitation. She loved and loved and loved and he didn't understand how she could stand to be around him even now when he was much worse than before - when he didn't understand how it worked.

"Stupid," Marie scoffed lightly. "How are you supposed to be objective when you're a part of the experiment?"

"I didn't consider that until it was too late," Stein admitted, staring down at her finger tracing a scar that ran from under his pinky finger down his palm and wrist before it disappeared under the sleeve of his jacket. "It was… I wasn't thinking straight. Couldn't focus. Couldn't sleep. My failures were mocking me. I had to push myself to the next level. My alchemy was all I had and I…"

Those long, dark nights in his lab when he knew that he was on the brink of something incredible, a voice in the back of his mind whispering that he was holding himself back. Science didn't conform to society's rules. Science broke the rules and created new ones. Science tested the very limits of the world. What was he doing, trying to play by society's rules? An itching, aching desperation to do _something_ but knowing that he couldn't. The last time he'd ignored all the warning signs, he'd found himself digging into his best friend's very life source while the man slept on the couch after a fight with his wife and a long night of drinking.

And Spirit was gone. And Marie was gone. And he only had himself to blame. He only had himself to use.

The only other option would've been doing what Medusa had done, plucking innocent people off the street to conduct experiments on. So he cut himself open and dug around and decided to see what he could find. It had helped his research in the end, hadn't it? Four years later and he couldn't be for certain. The government had given him a few volunteers, paid of course, to work with two years ago. That had been enough to quiet any restless thoughts leftover in his mind after he'd used himself up.

"You were punishing yourself," Marie said gently. How could she be so gentle with him? He could hurt her. His alchemy, as much as he'd started his research to do good, was capable of so much evil. The government had preferred it that way and so that was the way he'd gone. It was all too easy to justify it that way, he supposed. "You know that, right?"

"Punishing myself for what?"

Marie hardened and stopped tracing the scars to look up at him. "You know what you did."

"Then why doesn't it haunt me?" Stein questioned her. He needed her to understand that things had changed. He thought, maybe, he could be better with her back in his life, but this case, this alchemy, it was driving him to realize some very ugly truths about himself. He hadn't killed anyone in the process of his research, but he had damn well broken more than a few fundamental rules. "Why do I still dream about the night you lost your eye when I can barely bother to remember the nights I experimented on Spirit?"

Looking shaken up at such a terrible memory being brought up, Marie pulled her hands away from him and took a step back. Stein felt both relieved and frustrated. " _Stop it_. You're doing it again: deflecting, but even worse, you're trying to emotionally manipulate me."

Stein held out his hands, one gloved and one bare. "That's who I am, Marie. You've always known this."

"You don't think you're trying to guard yourself," Marie told him, her voice harder than he remembered it ever being. She was glaring at him too, her golden eye filled with anger. "But you're capable of regret and you're capable of feeling something. You're just lying to protect yourself otherwise. Stop acting like you're one step away from becoming the Vector Alchemist and do something. I won't have you treating me like glass and I'm already sick of the way you're avoiding Spirit. You're a better man than this, Franken, and I have _always_ known that."

Without any warning, Marie threw his glove at him, hitting him square in the face and knocking his glasses askew, and then stormed out of the alley, the stomp of her boots echoing with every step. Stein watched her walk away until she disappeared around the corner of the alley before fixing his glasses and bending down to pick his glove up. She had clutched it so tightly as she spoke, like it was grounding her to reality. Half of him clung to the hope that she was right; the other half laughed and told him that she was wrong.

Tugging the glove back on, Stein took a breath and followed her out of the alley. However, instead of finding Marie already waiting for him in the car that HQ had given them, she was talking to a young man in a soldier's uniform. He couldn't see her face with her back to him or hear what was being said, but judging from the other officer's face, it wasn't good news. He saluted and then hurriedly took off in the direction of HQ.

Stein stepped up next to her and looked down at her questioningly, not bothering to speak out loud.

Marie looked up at him gravely, her lips pressed into a thin line. She looked displeased. "There were two more kidnappings, reported an hour ago."

"How can we be for sure that they're connected to Medusa?" Stein asked.

"The victims were from out of town and staying in different hotels, but there were signs of alchemy at both places." There was a hard edge to her voice, similar to how she had spoken to him in the alley, except this time, he could tell that she wasn't distraught. He had seen the consequences of her anger before, but this was more than that. She was furious. It appeared as if the years they'd spent apart had changed her as well. It...didn't feel good to linger on. "We have to catch her, Stein."

"We will," Stein told her, once again falling to empty platitudes. He only did that with her. He'd never even done that with Spirit, not even when the man and Kami had confronted him over his actions and behavior.

But then he also didn't point out that these two people would more than likely be dead before they caught Medusa. He wasn't going to lie to Marie outright. False hope was dangerous and hurtful and he was trying to be a better man.


	4. Arsenic

The case remained silent for the next few days. Neither of the kidnap victims were tossed away like trash and so no more clues were left to be found. It was a cold way of looking at things, but Stein would've liked something to shake the investigation up. As of right now, they were at a complete standstill.

Besides, even the lack of murder victims couldn't be seen in a positive light. Either the victims were still being experimented on like alchemy lab rats or Medusa had succeeded in her human chimera plan, both of which were horrifying concepts. What happened to their consciousness when they were melded together like that? Did they switch or did one consciousness remain dominant? Would there be two new humans or just one with the other disregarded as leftover waste?

So many questions, but with the lack of bodies on their doorstep, there were no new answers.

Stein didn't voice any of those questions out loud. They would only serve to disturb Marie and Spirit even more than they already were and such queries weren't exactly pertinent to the case. The answers wouldn't help them find Medusa any faster, most like, just progress their knowledge of their research. He had known already that she was working on chimeras and was even looking into experimenting with humans. She had wanted to know how it might affect their life force and "souls", after all, which was his area of expertise.

He should've dug further. Maybe then they wouldn't be in this boring mess of a situation, eating fast food in a hotel room while he poured through the case file for the hundredth time while Marie slept. It was nearing on six in the morning and he probably should've been sleeping still, but he'd woken up hungry after having dark, bloody, vague dreams. Marie had always said that his stomach had weird timing.

Glancing in Marie's direction, he noted her eye patch sitting innocently on the nightstand. He wondered how long she'd had the blue eye patch to match her uniform - if she'd switched it out as soon as she'd moved out of his place or if it had been a purchase on a whim after having the old one for so long. The military had given her another black one after returning from Ishval because of the sand that seemed to infect the original eye patch. He was curious about her depth perception, if it hindered her once precise shooting. Certainly her field of vision was limited now. How long before she had worked around those new complications? She was still bumping into furniture by the time she'd moved out, but she walked around effortlessly now.

The phone suddenly ringing on the desk jarred Stein out of his thoughts and he moved to pick it up off the hook as Marie bolted upright in bed. He looked over her untamed bed head hair as she blinked wildly and pressed the receiver to his ear. "Hello?"

Stein wasn't sure who he was expecting to call at six in the morning, but it wasn't a high-pitched, young girl's voice on the other end shouting shrilly, " Oh my god, there's so much blood! "

Marie looked at Stein curiously as he held the phone in his hands and tried to figure out what to say. How Maka Albern had managed to find the phone number to their hotel room was a question for another time as what she was calling him about seemed a lot more important. "Maka, are you alright? Are you injured?" At the mention of the girl's name, Marie threw the blankets off and rushed out of the bed towards him, nearly jerking the phone out of his hands. "Maka?"

" It's not… " She gulped down air as she hyperventilated on the other end. She sounded like she was either close to crying or screaming. " It's not my blood. "

That sent a chilling thought down Stein's spine. "Is it Spirit? Is he hurt?"

" No, no, Papa is already at work… " Maka sniffled, sounding very small. He could picture her holed up somewhere, curled up in a ball, as if it could protect her. " I don't know who it is. I thought...I thought it was a dead animal at first, but then I saw the foot and… "

Realization hit Stein at once. So much blood. He thought of his dreams, of the crime scene photos, of that tan-line finger connected to Wright's body. They had their next clue: one of the victims had been dumped.

Right on General Spirit Albern's doorstep for his daughter to find.

"Did you call your father?" Stein questioned.

" No, I- "

"Call him. Lock the doors and stay inside. We're on our way."

And then he hung up. As if locking the doors would do any good if the Vector Alchemist wanted to break inside, but she'd ignored that route when deciding to dump the body in plain sight. Marie would say that he should've tried to comfort Maka more, as she was a young girl currently traumatized and scared out of her mind, but they didn't have time. They could do the comforting later. Right now, they needed to get to that crime scene as fast as possible. Who knew how long ago Medusa had left the area?

"Stein, what is it?" Marie asked as she watched him gather his things.

"Body number one was discovered," Stein told her.

Marie immediately began to pick out her uniform, but then she stopped to look at him in disbelief. "Maka found another body?"

"More like the body found her," Stein explained, hoping that his impatience would be contagious. Marie's face paled as she realized what he was saying and she inhaled sharply. "We're not the only ones who know about the witnesses. Medusa must have seen Maka and Soul."

It was going to be a very long day. Spirit was going to be a mess.

* * *

"I cannot believe this!" Spirit exclaimed as he paced around his living room. He had run his fingers through his thick, red hair approximately five times since Stein and Marie had arrived. Of course he'd beat them there despite being at work, dropping everything and rushing home with the alarms blaring the moment his daughter had called him to let him know that there was a corpse on his front doorstep. "This is beyond brazen!"

"At least we know the area hasn't been tampered with since the drop off," Marie put in, even though she likely knew that it wouldn't make Spirit feel any better. Marie liked platitudes; she liked calming words; she liked flowery, little lies that made people feel a false sense of hope.

Spirit did not want any of those things at the moment, however, and he cast her a withering glare that only made Marie bite her lip. He turned on his heels, storming towards the window, and gesticulated outside. "Medusa dropped a body on my doorstep! At my house! With my daughter alone inside! The only way this could have been worse is if she had dumped the body on the steps of Eastern HQ and I honestly think I would've preferred that."

Stein quirked an eyebrow at the mental picture of a desecrated body lying right in front of HQ's doors, the blood sliding down the steps like a river and pooling at the bottom. It would've made a hell of a statement had Medusa done that, a slap to the government's face. After all, the government didn't take defamation too lightly. He could just picture the uproar the Fuhrer would've had if she had done something along those lines. Spirit would've had the letter read to him. Stein and Marie would've been given earfuls of reprimands. It wouldn't have been fun.

However, the fact that she had chosen to dump the body on General Albern's private property definitely couldn't be seen as a coincidence. It was a message and a very dangerous one at that. To anyone in the government that had at least half a brain, it would be obvious that Spirit was involved in an investigation of this level. He was one of two fully ranked Generals in Eastern, but the one closer with the Fuhrer and, despite or perhaps because of his youth, with more experience in the field.

"Does she think she can scare me away from this investigation?" Spirit demanded as he stared heatedly out of the window. At least he'd stopped pacing. "Because I can assure you, if anything, this has only added fuel to the fire. I will see her captured and punished! No bullshit excuse of keeping her around so that we can use her alchemy research. The moment she's in custody, she's done for!"

His eyes were latched onto his daughter, who was sitting outside on a bench next to her best friend, surrounded by multiple soldiers. A female soldier, most likely some sort of psychiatrist, was speaking with her. Stein had forced himself not to twist his lips into a sneer when he had seen that; he did his best to stay away from people like that and for good reason. They liked to poke and prod his mind as much as he liked to do with others.

Marie sat quietly throughout Spirit's tirade, but her eye glowed with worry. No doubt she was unused to seeing Spirit so worked up and furious - for the most part, he acted carefree and lighthearted - but Stein had witnessed those brief moments when Spirit's red hair lived up to its reputation. He had a serious protective streak for those that he loved and, much like Marie, he had a big heart.

Stein would always remember the tense way the two of them had sat next to Marie's bedside in Ishval, the silence between them so thick that it felt like smoke in his lungs. He remembered Spirit gazing down at Marie, fire in his green eyes, as he asked, "Did they suffer?" For what the men had done to her, had Stein caused them to suffer? And when Stein had nodded his head, his throat too constricted from that long, dark silence, Spirit had taken a deep breath and responded in a hot, vicious tone, "Good."

Even bright, joking, goofy Spirit could have a dark side.

"I don't think she meant to scare you," Stein finally spoke, for the first time since he and Marie had arrived at the scene. Spirit turned to face them, but his eyes were solely focused on Stein. The same fire that had been in Spirit's eyes that night in Ishval were in them now, but Stein didn't blink. "I think she opened a line of communication."

"She couldn't have written a letter or made a call like a normal person?" Spirit snorted and shook his head. "All you alchemists are mad."

While Marie frowned at Spirit's implication of grouping Stein with Medusa, Stein himself wasn't bothered. If anyone had a right to believe that, it was Spirit and, to be fair, he wasn't out of line in saying it. "The body was her call, her message, and it's obvious what it is."

"What? That she's smarter than me? That I can't catch her?"

"That she knows."

The air seemed to leave the room as all three of them went quiet and stilled. Marie's hands tensed in her lap. Spirit's mouth opened and then closed as he stared at Stein, who looked back at him blankly. It was the obvious message, wasn't it? The body on the doorstep wasn't just a taunt to Spirit or the government he represented. She could've made that statement well enough if she'd left the body anywhere near a government building. No, it was far more personal than that, even intimate, but the real tell was that the body hadn't been left for Spirit, a military man, to find.

It had been left for Maka.

"Does that scare you?" Stein asked him.

Spirit glared at him. "What kind of asinine, cruel question is that?"

Before Stein could respond, most likely with a smart remark, Marie stood up and walked over to Spirit, taking his hands in hers. It had her desired effect, draining Spirit immediately of all the tension in his body. He went limp, his eyes losing heat as he swept them to look down at Marie. Stein focused on their joined hands, the way she methodically rubbed her thumbs back and forth over his knuckles, slowly causing Spirit to relax. It was almost mesmerizing. She used to do that with him during long nights after they'd returned from Ishval. Those had been the only nights that he'd slept all the way through without dreaming. He didn't know how she did it, not even now.

"The threat is real," Marie said, her voice soothing and soft. "Trying to keep a lid on any witnesses is a moot point now." Spirit nodded his head. How could she be so direct and yet so gentle? Whenever Stein was direct, as he almost always was, it was like stabbing someone in the gut. Marie's words, on the other hand, felt like a caress. Even Stein felt slightly lulled into a thoughtful state. "The question now is how to keep Maka safe."

Spirit glanced back outside. Maka was no longer being questioned, but she wasn't left alone either. The soldiers were still there and so was Soul, who was awkwardly holding onto her as she wrapped her arms around his middle and pressed her face into his chest. Spirit took a deep breath. "I'm sending her to stay with Soul. It'll most likely anger her, but it's the best option." When Marie gave him a questioning look, he sighed. "He doesn't look it, but Soul comes from the Evans family, one of the wealthiest and most powerful families in Amestris. Probably the only more protected person than the Evans is the Fuhrer himself."

"Do you think that will be enough?" Marie asked. "We could send her away. I'm sure Sid and Mira would agree to look after her."

"For however pretty it is, the Evans mansion is a fortress," Spirit replied, shaking his head. "Besides, Maka would fight tooth and nail and possibly ty to sneak back here if I sent her out of the city." It appeared she had inherited Kami's foolhardy stubbornness. It was a dangerous trait in situations like this one. "As long as she stays put and keeps her head down, she'll be fine."

Stein lounged further back on the couch now that Marie was no longer sitting down beside him. "You could always tell her that she would endanger Soul's life if she tries to nose her way into the investigation." Both Spirit and Marie looked back at him, neither of them looking terribly shocked at his suggestion. The best way to handle kids, he had found out when he was young, was to manipulate them. "Maka will be much more hesitant to disobey orders to stay out of things if someone else is at risk."

"How underhanded of you," Spirit replied, but he wore an agreeable expression on his face.

Maka would no doubt be furious if she ever learned that her father had emotionally manipulated her in such a way, especially when it came to her feelings towards her best friend, but it was the smartest move. One day, when she was as old as them, she would understand. Besides, it was the truth, a slight manipulation of it to be sure, but still the truth. All exploitations were exaggerations of the some form of the truth. Being in the government meant that they had to be skilled in such an area, even someone as honest as Marie.

"What now?" Spirit asked.

Stein stood up and stretched, his mind eager to leave the room and do what he had been desperate to do the moment Maka had called him. "Now we get a closer look at the body and dump site." He kept his face neutral, trying to keep his anticipation hidden. Both Marie's and Spirit's first concern had been Maka, but Stein's mind had been elsewhere almost the entire time. "It'll be much more enlightening to look at the body firsthand instead of through pictures."

"The smell is a lot more than unpleasant," Spirit said, wrinkling his nose.

"That won't bother me," Stein pointed out.

"I know," Spirit replied sharply. "Nothing bothers you."

Sometimes, Stein believed that. It felt like nothing could penetrate the wall that he had begun to build around himself the moment he began to understand the world he lived in. Other times ( _Marie crying, "I can't see," Spirit slamming the door behind him, his own reflection sneering back at him_ ), Stein wished it was true.

* * *

The body was as gruesome as the others, practically turned inside out, but it had a very different effect on them seeing it in person compared to viewing it through cold photographs. Stein's heart raced in his chest as he gazed down at the body. It was both horrific and electrifying. More than one soldier had gotten sick or gagged whenever they tried to get a closer view to take pictures. Even Marie and Spirit hung a few feet back, casting leery and disgusted glances in the direction of the ruined thing.

"I'll leave you to examine it, if you don't mind," Marie told him as he tugged at his gloves. She squeezed his elbow, like he might need the emotional support, keeping it there until he turned away from the body to look her in the face. He saw the question in her eye. Was he going to be okay?

Most people would've given a tremulous smile in response, a smile that said, It'll be tough, but it's my job. Stein was not most people and he did not smile. He blinked, which somehow seemed to appease her, as she gave him the same smile that was expected of most people and then stepped down from the porch to help search the rest of the area. Besides the body, there were no obvious traces of alchemy, but Marie would know what to look for after being around him for so long. He trusted her to find something if it was there.

Although he would be able to give a much closer examination of the body when it was transferred to the M.E.'s, Stein thought it was imperative to inspect the body at the dump site. Small details and clues would be lost once the body was taken out of its original positioning and he was loathed to miss anything. No amount of looking at photos of the scene would give him the same sense.

(Or rather, it wouldn't give him the same rush .)

Stein bent down to get a better look, hovering over the body in what was by society's standards far too close. The stench of blood was the same as it always was, although he believed that he could detect a slight difference that was brought on by alchemy. He could never explain the smell, as it wasn't chemical or organic. It was… Well, the only way he could ever describe it was electrical, perhaps charged, which made no sense, as neither were smells. Maybe burnt was the closest thing he could come up with, but it wasn't like there was smoke drifting up from the body. The blood was simply used up by alchemy and changed.

When he actually started to poke at the body, the blood staining his fingertips, the one lone soldier that was attempting to stand guard unaffected began to dry heave and stumbled down the steps away from him, leaving Stein completely alone with the body. He smiled faintly. The kid had lasted longer during Stein's inspection than he'd expected, but only a coroner or a sadist would've been able to handle the way Stein closely examined the body.

It was then, as his eyes traveled from the decimated jaw to the torn open rib cage, when he noticed something peeking out of what would've been the esophagus. It was only a hint of white, but it was there. At first glance, he had probably thought it was bone, but it was far too white and thin. Besides, the placement was odd. While the entire body was destroyed, it looked as if this one white thing had been shoved in place afterwards. When grasped the thin edge, he realized it was paper immediately. Carefully, he pulled it out of the body, noting the blood stains on the folded paper. Stained red as it was, it had definitely been placed after the disposal and precisely so that it wouldn't be completely ruined.

Still bent over the body, Stein unfolded the paper and examined the inside. Written in deliberate, bold strokes that he recognized was a single line: **C** **8** **H** **17** **N** **1** **O** **1** **x 2 Sonnenuntergang** .

Stein tilted his head as his eyes took in the writing. He knew that penmanship, though it was not as familiar to him as Marie's or even Spirit's. However, it was the handwriting that sat in the back of his mind as he remembered pages and journals handed over to him in secret. It was the handwriting of tempting words whispered in the dark. It made perfect sense that he would see this writing again in yet another code. It wasn't the same one as before - all alchemists wrote in code - but it was something familiar. It was a scientist speaking to another scientist, a language that he could understand.

"Sonnenuntergang" was incredibly easy. It was "sunset" in German, the language of his parents and ancestors, an old tongue that was intimate and comforting. He had learned it alongside English growing up, his parents wanting him to be bilingual and excited to realize that his brain soaked it up like a sponge. To him, German was like coming home. His parents spoke English all the time, but he could still remember his mother reading him the true Brothers Grimm tales in German as bedtime stories, no matter how gruesome they were. He had always preferred them that way and his parents, especially his mother, had adapted quickly to the weird quirks of their only child.

That was how he knew this message was for him. It was personal.

The chemical formula was more difficult. In time, he would be able to figure it out, as he was able to read it out loud simply. Separated, he knew what each component stood for: - Carbon, Hydrogen, Nitrogen, and Oxygen. Simple chemicals on the periodic table that almost anyone could recognize. Put together though and it created something very specific. The "x 2" part was out of place as well, but it didn't make sense to group it with "Sonnenuntergang" either. He racked his mind for an answer, but he didn't know the chemical formula offhand, which was frustrating. This should've been simple for him.

And it was for him, very much so. The chemical formula was another direct reference to his scientific background. He wasn't just about alchemy. The note was small and fragile, but it felt anything but those things. It felt as if the entire investigation had gone sideways, his view off-kilter, like he was close to toppling over. When he had said that Medusa was trying to open a line of dialogue, he hadn't known that it would be this direct - or this intimate.

Movement in the corner of his eyes caught his attention and he saw Marie and Spirit walking back towards him. Standing up effortlessly, his knees protesting more from moving away from the body than anything else, Stein slipped his blood-stained hands into his pockets - along with the note.

"Find anything interesting or did you merely lose your appetite like everyone else?" Spirit asked, being careful to keep the body out of his line of sight. He'd prefer to look at it through the photographs where the other senses couldn't be assaulted. It made things less personal. And people said that Stein was detached.

"Not yet," Stein replied flatly. "I'll have more information once I conduct an official autopsy."

Spirit groaned. "Sounds like your idea of a perfect Saturday afternoon."

"Preferable to a night blowing money at a gentleman's club," Stein said.

Ignoring the jab without so much as a glare, probably to save face in front of Marie, Spirit waved a hand and two people from the coroner's stepped up to place the remains in a body bag. They looked tougher than the rest of the soldiers, but seemed at a loss as to how to get the body in the bag without it falling apart on them. Stein stepped away from the body, brushing past Marie, and walked off the porch towards the car.

"Where are you going?" Marie called after him.

"Lunch," Stein told her without looking back. He could picture Marie wrinkling her nose in distaste but not saying anything negative against him.

When Spirit grumbled something too low for Stein to hear as he walked away, Stein heard Marie's fading voice patiently defending him, "Oh, his stomach always has had weird timing," reminding him of this morning. He hadn't been able to eat this morning after waking up from those strange dreams before Maka's frantic phone call. It would make sense to her that he was hungry now and she wouldn't look at him oddly for it. She'd think that it was perfectly normal for him. She'd believe him.

The fact that he was lying, knowing all those things full well, made his stomach twist and ended any lingering appetite that he might've had from this morning. It didn't stop him though. He still got in the car and drove away without another word in the direction of the Third Branch Library. The note sat heavily in his pocket, making him feel like it would slow the car down, but every turn and acceleration was so smooth that it could've been easy to pretend. He wasn't lying. He just didn't have all the information yet and he didn't like explaining things until he understood everything himself.

* * *

A chill hung in the air as Stein stood at the corner of Hemlock and Second, watching the rays of the sun as they shined above a building it hid behind. He had a new pair of gloves on that he'd retrieved from the hotel room after his visit to the library, but it was cold enough to keep them in his pockets. With that errand done, he'd gone to HQ, handing a bag with Marie's favorite sandwich and chips to her, a sign that he had indeed gone to get lunch. He hadn't missed the appreciative smile on her face or Spirit's arched eyebrow. After that, he'd swung down to the morgue to conduct a much more in-depth autopsy. The coroner had seemed almost grateful at Stein's intrusion.

All in all, it had been a busy day, but it was this time, this place, this moment that had occupied his mind. It had been difficult to separate this last excursion from his mind, even during the autopsy, which normally would've captured his full attention for hours on end. But he could not stop thinking about the note, that simple line, which opened more doors than anything else so far.

Some of those doors, Stein was sure, would not show something even remotely pleasant.

Once he'd reached the library after leaving Spirit's place, it had only been a matter of time before he'd figured out the code. The mystery of the note had unfolded itself easily once he'd unlocked the first piece of the code that he hadn't understood immediately. Using the same intense research skills that all dedicated alchemists developed, Stein had cracked the code. The chemical formula, , stood for "hemlock," a poisonous herb which had obvious ties to Medusa. She was, in a sense, the poison of the military, its dirty and dark secret that it was both desperate to keep hidden and use.

"Sunset" was a time, so it became clear that the first part of the note was a place. After consulting a map of East City, he found a Hemlock Street. Sliding a finger down the street on the thin parchment, he found the intersection where it connected with Second Street. Hemlock and Second at Sunset, a piece of Medusa, a piece of him, and the science that tied them together.

And so here he was, leaning against a building, his eyes examining the street idly. It looked just like any other street. A sweets shop that Marie would love and a bank across the street, a pawn shop at his left, an old apartment complex that looked close to needing repairs on his right. Also, conveniently on his side of the street, was an old payphone. Graffitied as it was, it was still in operation, as he'd found out upon picking up the phone. Medusa wouldn't dare show up in person, not when she couldn't know Stein's exact state of mind (not when he didn't know it himself). He had known the moment he saw the payphone where he needed to be.

Snagging a cigarette out of the pack sitting inside pocket of his jacket and placing it in his mouth, Stein pulled out a lighter and lit the cigarette. He'd started smoking back in Ishval and so far either hadn't been able to stop or hadn't bothered trying. It had been quite a while since he'd smoked though, not since Marie had shown up at his house in Central unannounced, so he felt like he deserved this one. Marie hated the smell of smoke, but she had never told him to stop either. A look of disapproval, more about his health than her dislike of the smell, and that was that. She didn't have to do anything else.

But she wasn't here now and she wouldn't be showing up. There was no Marie to tell him "no" with a single look, no Marie to ask him what he was doing, no Marie to make him question himself. Instead there was that old, familiar silence, the kind that he had lived in for so long after Spirit left and she moved out. It was his silence. He was used to it, had once found consolation of sorts in it, but now it felt wrong and out of place. Or maybe he was the piece that was disjointed. It hadn't been long, but already things seemed like they were changing.

For some reason, that made him feel like he was running out of time. But running out of time for what?

The payphone rang, jarring him out of his thoughts for the second time that day. Once again, it was Medusa, interrupting his concentration as he tried to make sense of things. No one else would randomly be calling a payphone just as the sun set. As darkness began to take over and the streetlamps switched on, Stein made his way over to the tilting phone and picked it up. He didn't even bother asking who it was.

"Medusa."

"Stein," her voice purred on the other end, "it's so good to hear from you."

"It would've been better to see you in person," Stein told her.

The joke, if it was one, wasn't lost on her and she let out a delighted laugh. "You would've liked that, wouldn't you?" There was an edge to her laugh though that wasn't in other people's laughs, an edge that reminded him painfully of his own, though he very rarely did so. He wondered what it would be like to laugh normally, like Marie or Spirit, but it was too abstract for him to imagine when he had nothing to base it on. Even as a child, he had been serious and seldom laughed, except when it was accompanied by an unpleasant sneer.

He thought - maybe, a few weeks after Marie had first moved in, before they had been sent to Ishval, before Stein had crossed the line with Spirit… They had been drinking - him, Marie, Spirit, and Kami - and Spirit had of course said something dumb to make Kami fume, but it had been funny and Marie had laughed so hard that she'd stumbled back on the arm of the couch and toppled into Stein's lap, and he had smiled and laughed as Spirit and Kami did... Maybe then…

"It's no fair that you're with _them_ ," Medusa pouted, her voice feminine and light, sounding like she was hurt, "when you should be with _me_ ."

"With you," Stein said in a flat voice. "You're murdering people."

"Because their deaths or even their lives impacted society so much," Medusa scoffed, no longer hurt or soft. Her voice was icy again, absolutely precise and leaving no room for arguing, just like her research. "Meanwhile, my alchemy research will change the way we live or even look at people. It will shape the world! Now what's more important? Their deaths mean something this way."

Stein blew out a smoke ring. "We both know you're not doing this to better the world. You're doing it for yourself, for your own curiosity, your own desire for knowledge. Don't act like you're being altruistic."

"In comparison to your own alchemy?" Medusa countered. He could hear that snake of a smile in her voice, the kind of smile that made men shiver. It promised so many horrible things and more. He had found it enticing when he had met her as they exchanged research. His heart leaping now told him that he still did. "Don't forget: you've killed more people with your alchemy than I ever will."

Ishval. He had only killed people with his alchemy in Ishval. It had been wartime. Death had surrounded them all. Those men were going to kill Marie or worse. They hurt her. Stein gripped the phone tightly in his hand so that he wouldn't crush the cigarette in his teeth. He had been in a war. It was different. Wasn't it?

"Maybe I'm better than you by refusing to give my alchemy research to the government knowing full well that they'll abuse it," Medusa mused. "That didn't stop you, did it? The perks were worth it." She giggled, the sound cold enough to chill blood in a man's veins. "I wonder how many prisoners were trotted through your lab for you to experiment with under the promise that their families would be given money, hm?"

It felt like he'd been stabbed in the gut. Of course he had known that he was essentially signing his soul over to the government when he'd become a State Alchemist. He hadn't had any illusions about what the military was or who was running it. But even he had started out studying alchemy as hopeful, wanting to do good. They'd twisted his alchemy into something awful, but he had let it happen and went down the path they'd wanted him to travel.

"The only difference between you and me is that you're the Fuhrer's dog."

The cigarette dropped from his lips and he ground it into the sidewalk. "At least I know when to heel. You're out of control. Disposing the body on Spirit's doorstep for his daughter to find? You're becoming erratic. Makes me wonder if you've hit a wall in your research and are lashing out on purpose."

"That little brat? I just wanted to scare her. Let her know that not even her papa could protect her."

"Spirit is ready to kill you himself for that if you're found," Stein said, thinking of the way Spirit had been subconsciously clenching and unclenching his fists, like he wanted to wrap his hands around Medusa's neck. He wasn't a violent man by nature, not like Stein, but even Spirit had his buttons and Maka was definitely one of them. She was his only child and all he had left of Kami.

"What's that pathetic man to me?" Medusa scoffed. "He couldn't even protect himself from you, his so-called best friend." Stein went completely silent, not even breathing, which she somehow was able to interpret as a reaction to her words even over the phone. "Oh, you thought that was your dirty, little secret? Stein, I know you down to your soul. I know what you're capable of and who you truly are - and you're holding yourself back. It's tragic."

Holding himself back. Yes, he was doing that. And for good reason. He had made a lot of headway in his research when he had experimented on Spirit, but it had also done some irreparable damage. Years later, even he was able to understand that much. It had shattered whatever trust those closest to him had had in him - and left in solely in the clutches of the government. He'd had no one else, after all, and it had been his fault.

He blinked. That was perhaps the first time he'd admitted any sort of guilt in the situation. Most of the time, his mind glazed over it, but now…

"Stein," Medusa said, calling him back to her, "you know what I'm doing. You know that it's important. But you don't know what freedom is. You've worn a collar for too long. Join me. Your alchemy will be limitless. That's what you want, isn't it? Just the freedom to do your research in peace, no one telling you what to do or where to go, no one judging you for pushing the scientific boundaries. It's what alchemists are meant to do!"

"I'm not…" Stein shook his head. No. No, he couldn't do that, no matter how much the idea sang to him. What would it feel like to be unhindered and left alone? More importantly, what would it feel like to be completely understood?

He liked to think that Marie understood him, but perhaps accepted him was a better term. She didn't know why his brain operated the way it did or why he did or said certain things, but she never pushed him to change. She merely nodded her head and moved on or responded smoothly. Sometimes she would shake her head and smile, "Oh, Franken," like she couldn't comprehend something, but she never berated him for it. So no, maybe she didn't understand him; maybe she only tolerated him. The conclusion hurt worse than he expected. Even his parents had been mystified by the way he was, but that they loved him despite his coldness anyways.

However, Medusa could perhaps understand him. She was an alchemist after his own mind, one that wasn't afraid to cross the line or reach for lofty goals. She didn't hold herself back. She accepted the darkest parts of herself and used them to better herself and her alchemy. That was what he wanted, didn't he? And it would be so good to be around someone that knew that part of him and not only accepted it but understood it and would help him. It would be nice to be around someone that wasn't trying to hold him back, keep him grounded to society's norms for some unknown reason, make him pretend to be like everyone else.

He thought of Marie's face the moment right before she walked out of their shared house for the last time. The way she had looked at the empty room, lacking her silly decorations, all the touches that said it was her place alongside his. The beakers that they used to make tea were still there, but the tea bags were gone. The plants, some of them dangerous along with pretty because he couldn't resist himself, that she'd insisted on decorating with were missing. All the bright colors, except for the purple couch, were boxed up. But none of that had made her look like her heart was physically breaking as much as when she'd looked at him, like he was gone too.

She had reached up and touched his face with her fingertips, warm against his cold skin, and tears had welled in her one remaining eye. He hadn't known what to say - because he didn't do goodbyes when they were pointless and everyone left in the end anyways - and so he'd asked her about the couch. She had smiled weakly as she told him, "Keep it - because I know you won't buy another one." She'd understood that about him without him even saying a word about it before.

"I'm not like you," Stein told Medusa coldly. "I'm going do everything in my power to hunt you down and put an end to your research."

"Oh? Then why didn't you tell your dear little Marie about the note you found?" Medusa asked, the smugness in her voice all too obvious. Stein gritted his teeth. It wasn't just the way she spoke about Marie that got under his skin, but also the fact that she was right. He'd kept this phone call from Marie - and planned on doing so. This wouldn't help the investigation; it would only serve to make her question if he was capable of doing the job, which he damn well was. "Seems like the kind of thing you wouldn't hide if you're trying to capture me."

"A moment of confusion," Stein confessed. "It's clear now."

Medusa harrumphed. "Is it? I'm disappointed in you, but maybe you're not ready to accept yourself yet or maybe someone is keeping you caged up. An alchemist's self-journey is often to hardest." And then she hung up, no goodbye, because like him, she didn't need one either. Besides, it wasn't a goodbye, not with the promise of meeting again hanging in the air. Before this was over, Stein knew that he would have to confront her. He was fine with that. Confronting himself, however, was another thing.

* * *

"Stein?"

Marie's voice was groggy and disoriented, floating in the dark like it was a ghost. Frozen at the door that he'd shut as quietly as possible, Stein didn't dare look back, as if he was afraid that he would find out that her wasn't there and connected to her voice. He had thought that he could sneak back into their hotel room without waking her, though he wasn't sure why he was trying to sneak in the first place. Like he was trying to hide something. Like he had done something wrong.

(Since when had he ever lied or kept something from Marie? Was that why he had wandered around the city aimlessly for so long until he'd dragged himself back here?)

His lack of response made no difference. She knew it was him without him even saying anything, perhaps because of that very reason. Anyone else would've panicked at being caught, although he couldn't rightly say that he wasn't panicking. He didn't do things like that and yet his stomach turned and he scraped his fingertips against the door as he clenched his fist.

"It's so late," Marie said, still laden with sleep. "I was worried about you. I tried to stay up, but-"

Stein finally turned around to face her. Now that his vision had adjusted to the darkness, he could see her shadowy figure lying on her bed. She had sat up partially, rubbing her good eye with one hand while the other propped her up, looking close to collapsing back in bed and falling asleep. She was still mostly in her uniform, sans the jacket and boots. Papers and folders were littered around her over top the blankets, reminding him of how he typically fell asleep during long research sessions.

Moonlight sliced through the room when the heat kicked on and ruffled the curtains, just enough to illuminate Marie and cause her light hair to shine. It drew him towards her, like a moth to flames, until he stood at her bedside. The urge to sit down next to her on the bed and run his fingers through her golden hair burned hot in him so suddenly that it caught him off guard, but while his fingers twitched at his side for a moment, he kept them away from her. Stained with too much blood, too much residue of the past, he could not do anything.

"Where were you?"

A simple question that he answered with a half-truth. He was good at half-truths, but then, everyone in the military was. "Around the city. I needed air to think. I felt clouded."

And they both knew the dangerous consequences of what could happen if he felt like that too much. He made drastic decisions. He acted out. He needed to be kept under control. That was the true reason why Marie had been sent with him on this mission, wasn't it? To keep him in line, make sure he didn't do anything mad. He didn't begrudge her for this. It hadn't been her choice - to do this thing or have such an effect.

Marie reached up to him, but she was too small and he was too tall and yet he somehow found himself bending down to her level. She didn't even have to ask it of him. He sat down on the bed, keeping an obvious distance from her, both too much and not enough. Half of him wanted to lean into her touch as her fingers slid across his face until she rested her palm against his cheek. The other half of him wanted to jerk away and never let her come this close to him again. Not because he didn't want her to - he did, strangely enough - but because it was better for her. People close to him only managed to get hurt, even her.

"You're so cold," Marie said quietly. "You could get sick, wearing a thin jacket like that in this temperature."

Stein shook his head slightly, moving her hand as he did so, but she didn't pull away. "You worry too much."

"Maybe I don't worry enough." Her hand fell away from his face and into her lap, taking its warmth with it. The lack of her touch cut him like a knife, but he didn't want it though and tried to push it away. "What's going on in that head of yours? I can usually tell, but it's like you're blocking me out on purpose."

"Does that scare you?" Stein asked, the same question he asked Spirit earlier.

"Yes," Marie admitted, somewhat surprising him. She was never scared of him before. "I can't help you if you won't let me in."

Her eye dropped from his face, crestfallen and tired. She was not scared of him; she was scared for him. There was a difference. He could tell from the way that she held herself that she was disappointed, not in him, but in herself for not doing her job. It shouldn't be up to her to keep him out of trouble and yet both of them knew that he would not have been able to deal with this case alone. The government put too much on her shoulders.

Despite himself, Stein wanted to pull her close to him. That was what she would've done had the situations been reversed. She would've held onto him, ground him into reality, showed him with a single touch that what he was doing was right and good. He wanted to be like her, if only in this moment.

He wanted...a lot of things that he didn't understand. Some of them not good. One second crime scene photos would flash in his mind and excite him and the next they would disgust him. He simultaneously wanted to push Marie away and pull her closer to him - to shut her out but also lose himself in her. The desires were so vivid that he forced himself to keep a proper distance from everyone because he didn't know how to react.

"You're doing it again," Marie said, sounding distraught and confused, "except this time I'm right here and I don't know what to do."

Stein frowned, feeling out of it. The years they'd spent apart suddenly felt like a vast canyon that he couldn't cross. What had changed between them in the time they had been out of each other's lives? Had they changed so much? He grabbed her hands. It was what she would do. It was what he wanted to do. But then was he only trying to placate her to make up for what he'd done today? Was he trying to lull her into a state of relaxation like she had done Spirit earlier? Was it just a trick?

"It was small at first, only here and there whenever you think about the case too much, but then…" Marie bit her lip, gazing down at their hands. She didn't rub her thumb along his knuckles. "I can see you leaving."

Stein stared at her face. "I never left."

Marie's eye shot up to his. "I didn't either."

Without thinking, Stein let go of her hands and pulled away from her, like he'd been scalded by her words. She hadn't left? What did she call it then when she had moved out? She had left him. And he had never hated her for it, never begrudged her, never felt anger over it. But he had stayed and she had gone.

"I needed time - to myself, to...make sense of things, of Ishval, you. My re-enlistment was coming back up and I knew that I couldn't make the decision for myself if I still lived with you." Her words did scald him this time. She hadn't trusted him to remain in the military as a State Alchemist without her to guide him. She would've stayed in it even if she didn't want to, having seen his rapid decline after returning from Ishval. She would've hurt herself for him - and as much as he'd wanted her to stay at his side, he wouldn't have wanted her to suffer for him either. "But I chose to stay in the military and after that, I tried to mend things again - but you never responded."

It was true. All the times she'd called, he had sat there looking at the phone, not even moving towards it when he heard her tentative voice on the answering machine. He never deleted the messages himself, leaving them to the whims of the phone that would randomly delete them over time or when his inbox got too full. And then there were the letters, some of which he could've sworn smelled like her flowery perfume, that he let set on on the table next to the beakers for weeks at a time. Some he opened and read; some he merely put away after a while without ever attempting to look inside.

Over time, the letters stopped and the calls no longer had messages attached to them until they too came to an end. Only one night, when blood had dripped steadily from his face to the floor, had he held the phone in his slippery hands, half her number dialed. He'd memorized it the first time she left it on the machine. But then he had slowly hung up and returned to finishing stitching up his face after a failed experiment. What could he have possibly said to her then? I need you to come back because I'm literally tearing myself apart at the seams ? He couldn't manipulate her like that.

"Why didn't you ever answer me?" Marie asked. "Why did you block me out so completely? Were you that mad?"

"No, I wasn't mad," Stein answered truthfully.

"I missed you," Marie said, pulling her legs up to her chest. "But you cut me out, like a...like a tumor. Maybe you weren't mad, but you didn't want me in your life either."

I wanted you, a voice pleaded in the back of his mind. I wanted you more than anything in the world.

But then why hadn't he answered her calls or responded to any of her letters? If he had wanted her, if he had needed her in his life so badly, then why had he ignored her? To prove a point? To send a message that wasn't even true? He didn't know what to tell her now so he said nothing. Perhaps she had been the one to walk away, but he had been the one to burn the bridge.

Except the government had still known that he would let her step right back into his life the second he saw her. Was he so easy to manipulate? Was that why Medusa had singled him out?

"It's okay," Marie sighed, even though it wasn't, even though it never would be. She knew that he either wouldn't be able to answer or he didn't want to. That was Marie though: so accepting, so willing to persevere. She didn't let things hold her back. "It's in the past. What matters is the now." She took a deep breath. "And even if I don't know exactly what you're thinking, I know what you're worrying about."

"Oh, do you?" Stein inquired, raising an eyebrow.

"You're not her," Marie told him. The words nearly sucked the air out of his chest, but he didn't look away from her or blink. That was what he'd told himself just hours ago as the sun had set. Medusa seemed to think otherwise though and she sounded like she had a clearer head than he did right now. But he also trusted Marie more. She wouldn't try to manipulate him or force him to do something. "That's what scares you - but you're not. I've seen the good in your heart, as much as you try to hide it. I watch you looking at the pictures, delving into her mind, and I know you see the path you were close to taking. But you didn't. You alone stopped yourself."

"Marie…" He didn't know what to say. It had been difficult and painful. The ugly scars on his body could attest to that. His severed friendship with Spirit was a prime example, Medusa's tantalizing words over the phone an accusation. But here was Marie, sitting on a bed in the dark with him, the moonlight shimmering over her as the air moved the curtains. She was still wearing her eyepatch, but underneath it were scars that gave testament to his ability to be good and gentle.

She smiled at him, genuine and open. "Just don't go closing up on me and leaving me in the dark, got it?"

Stein tilted his head, allowing his glasses to glint in the moonlight, and his lips quirked into the closest thing to an appreciative smile that he could muster. "Got it."


	5. Crasis

Spirit practically grimaced when Stein walked through the door alone and peered around him when no one else came in after him. "Where's Marie?"

"She wanted to get some breakfast," Stein explained, speaking as if he thought the excursion was worthless. Except Marie had somehow known that he hadn't eaten since his random sandwich trip the morning before. Food was fuel, as she had told him, and it was something that he could agree with. He had left before her to get a head start on the investigation, her promising to meet up with them at HQ shortly. "She'll be here soon."

"Not soon enough," Spirit grumbled under his breath as he sank back in his seat behind his desk.

Stein chose to ignore the dig as he examined the room. It was a cozy and plush interior office, larger than most and with more open space and more expensive furniture. The outside office was filled with soldiers on his team. They were doing legwork in this investigation, organizing files and going through any paperwork, also taking calls on possible sightings and info on the tip line. Most of it was crack, but because of how high profile the case was, they had to answer every call and see to it that each tip was investigated. Only if the information panned out was it passed along to Spirit.

There were a few pictures to add a more personal touch to the office. Most of them were of Maka throughout the years of her youth, one with Spirit and Kami, but there was one picture, innocuously placed in between the others, that caught Stein's attention. It was of Spirit and Marie, but not as old as he would've originally guessed. He could tell that it was after Ishval because of Marie's eye patch, except it was the blue one she was wearing now, not the black one she'd been given upon returning to Central. So some time after she had moved out and, judging by the stars on Spirit's shoulder, after he was promoted to General, so within the past year and a half.

The thing that caused him to freeze was not how recent the photo was, but how happy they looked. Spirit wore a full, bright grin on his face, his green eyes shining, and he was standing up straight and proud with one arm wrapped around Marie's shoulders, pulling her snug against him. Meanwhile Marie looked to be mid laugh, her blond hair mused as her head was pressed against his side, her cheeks flushed, her golden eye practically glowing, and she had an arm around his back, her small hand gripping the other side of his jacket as she returned his hug. They were in their dress blues. Maybe it had been taken after a promotion ceremony.

Stein was taken aback, if only because he could not remember seeing either one of them so happy before. It had to have been before Ishval. But while he had languished in his lab, researching and obsessing and his outside life dissolving, the two of them had slowly begun to move on. Sure, he knew that Ishval had left scars on them all, the kind that would never go away even if they couldn't be seen. Spirit spent countless nights drinking and cheating on his wife, who had grown colder and more distant than perhaps Stein, and Marie had cried and spent hours silently staring into beakers of tea until they grew cold and he had to take them out of her hands.

The shame, the horror, and the pain would always be there. What they had done would always haunt them. What they had become would always be seen in their reflection. But Marie and Spirit had been able to find some sort of happiness again. They had picked up the jagged pieces of their lives and put them back together, if only for small moments such as the one in this picture.

And what had he done? Torn himself apart further? Shattered until he could barely recognize himself? Blocked out anyone who might've cared for him? What had they done for him? (Marie had tried. He could not blame her. And Spirit deserved the right to never do so.) He wondered, looking at that picture, if he could ever be like that. If he could ever be truly and so openly happy. He wondered if perhaps it would've been better for Marie and Spirit if the government had not forced him back into their lives. Could he ever make Marie so happy?

"It was taken after she was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel," Spirit said, appearing at Stein's side without him having realized the redhead had gotten up from his desk. "I was still living in Central then, even got to do the honors. It wasn't as fancy as the ceremony after we returned from Ishval - no pomp or propaganda - so the Fuhrer didn't go himself." When Stein said nothing in response, Spirit took that as a sign to continue. "She wanted you to come."

"I didn't know," Stein simply replied, still staring at the picture. They looked so close, but then they were, having known each other for years. They'd met through Kami and Stein met Marie through Spirit. Back then, they'd all thought they would be friends forever, so young and idealistic. Back then, Stein had believed that his alchemy would do good in the world. He hadn't taken the State Alchemist exam yet. He hadn't known. None of them had.

Spirit scoffed, uncaring how it made Stein feel. He was a good man like that. "You would've had you answered your damn phone." At this, Stein finally looked over at him, nothing given away in his eyes. Spirit wasn't deterred though like he used to be whenever Stein gave him a dead look. They'd gotten old. "I told her not to bother - you never answered before - but she was insistent. She hadn't tried in so long; maybe you would answer out of habit if you didn't know it was her. I think she just wanted to hear your voice."

"Thank you," Stein said quietly, the words feeling unusual on his tongue. He honestly couldn't remember the last time he had thanked anyone. Had it been during the ceremony when he'd been promoted to Colonel? Out of professionalism, he had thanked the Fuhrer, though he hadn't given a damn about the promotion. How long had he been since he'd been genuinely grateful to someone and told them?

Turning to give him a curious look, Spirit asked, "For what?"

"For being there for her."

"Yeah, well." Spirit shoved his hands in his pockets. "You certainly weren't. You left her out in the cold. Pretty damn cruel of you after all she did for you." He moved away from Stein, returning back to his desk, and lowered himself into his seat. "Not that you were ever kind-hearted to begin with, but you were usually warm to her."

"I wasn't always a monster to you," Stein inquired as he turned to face Spirit, "was I?"

The way Spirit sat at his desk now, leaning back slightly with his hands propped on top of his desk, it looked as if he was judging Stein. His gaze was cold and completely dispassionate, as if the two of them hadn't known each other for years and been through literal hell together. He'd saved Spirit's life in Ishval more than once and vice versa as well. But it would be impossible to guess that about their past now. Spirit stared Stein down the way he might a subordinate that made a serious error and faced possible court martial.

It had been brought up in Stein's case. Marie had been living with him then when Brigadier General Azusa had shown up on their doorstep to explain the situation. Marie had sat on the couch next to him, quietly horrified, but said just enough to defend him.

 _"Do you know what you've done?"_ Marie had demanded once the door shut behind Azusa.

Stein had gazed down at her for a moment before replying, _"Yes."_ And then Marie had stormed into her bedroom, slammed the door, and said nothing at all to him for a week.

That single question replaying in his mind over and over again. Do you know what you've done? Spirit never came back after that. There were long nights when Stein would jerk awake at his desk, sure that he heard the spare key scratching at the lock, but then silence would take over the room and he'd realize that he was just hearing things. Eventually things just faded away, like it had never happened. The charges were dropped after Stein turned in his latest findings.

Marie spoke to him again after a while, but she never brought up what had happened. He caught her staring at the couch some mornings, the same one Spirit would be sprawled on, still drunk from the night before. The first time he'd done that, she hadn't known he was there and walked out of the bathroom in her underwear because she had forgotten a towel. Her shriek upon Spirit waking up at the noise and seeing her unclothed had woken Stein up and made him leap out to fight her attacker, his mind reeling from the last time he'd heard her scream in Ishval. She'd hid herself in the bathroom again by the time he'd run out though.

Such innocent times, even after Ishval. No one had accused him of being a monster then, despite all the atrocities he had committed.

"No, you weren't always a monster to me," Spirit finally admitted, "but then, maybe I didn't know you as well as I thought I did." He snorted derisively, trying to appear as if it didn't affect him anymore as it once did. And maybe it didn't. Maybe, like Marie, he had learned to put things in the past. That didn't mean he had to forgive and forget. "You find out who a man truly is when he experiments on you at the most vulnerable point in your life."

Taking a deep breath, Stein turned to look back at the picture. "I wonder what would've happened if I hadn't done that, if I had…" What was it that he'd learned to do after Marie moved out? "If I had controlled myself better."

Medusa would've said that he had held himself back, refrained himself from reaching his true potential. After all, Stein had been the one to tell on himself. It could've stayed a secret if he hadn't allowed Spirit to come to early, which he'd known would happen, and figure things out. Some people just want to get caught. It would've been nice if Medusa leaving the body on Spirit's doorstep was the cry that so many criminals made, but he knew that it wasn't.

"Likely you wouldn't have gotten that extra grant for your research." Spirit laughed coldly. "I still can't believe they rewarded you for that." To be honest, Stein hadn't been able to believe it either. It had come shortly before Marie's decision to move out and had shocked the both of them. "To make it up to me, they gave me another promotion, claiming they hadn't done enough to reflect my selfless services in the Ishval War."

"You wouldn't be the youngest full General now," Stein concluded. It went unsaid that it was a possibility that Spirit's fast rise in the military was linked to his trauma, an attempt to smooth things over, but neither one of them wanted to say it out loud. It would give credit to what Stein had done to him and would only serve to make things more bitter and tense between them. Marie wouldn't want that.

"No, I wouldn't be," Spirit agreed. "The pay increase was nice. Helped pay for all the therapy I had to go to. Kami stuck around for longer than she planned, I think. Probably thought it would look bad or something if she left."

Stein glanced at the picture of Spirit, Kami, and Maka as a family. Maka was little, around three years old, so it had been taken before Ishval. They'd been one happy, little unit then, no strife between them. "She still cared about you. A few days after things came to a halt, she stopped by to have a chat - and by chat, I mean she nearly buried me with her alchemy. Hurt like hell."

"I guess you have a clue on how much it hurt," Spirit said.

He had no idea, of course. He saw Stein's scars and probably thought he'd gotten them by being attacked by someone else's alchemy. State Alchemists were often sent to deal with rogue alchemists, which could cause a lot of damage. The Vector Alchemist wasn't the first alchemist to go off the wire, just the first government one, if you didn't count him. Or it could have been a rebound. There were multiple consequences to performing alchemy.

"Yes, I suppose I do," Stein settled on saying. He glanced down at his State Alchemist watch that he'd pulled out of his pocket. It had meant so much to him when he'd first gotten it. Now he sometimes felt like throwing it out the window into a river. How much had this watch cost him? "I shouldn't have done it."

"No," Spirit replied, "but you did, knowing full well the consequences, and that's all that matters."

At a loss of what to say, Stein nodded his head absently and returned to look at the picture of Spirit and Marie. He thought of the picture of him and Spirit back at the Academy, the two of them in a similar position. Spirit with his arm around Stein, comical since he was shorter and had to stand on his toes, his smirk playful and young; Stein, his hair already grey, looking far more serious, but with a clever gleam in his eyes behind his glasses and a hint of a grin. They had been happy once too, hadn't they?

Spirit sighed. "Enough of that though. It's over. I'm done with it and frankly I'd rather not speak of it ever again." He rifled through some of the papers on his desk, the noise catching Stein's attention and pulling his gaze away from the picture. "We need to get back to work. Now where is that new report on the possible Medusa sightings? I just read it."

Typical Spirit. Despite his immaculate uniform, he was still an organized disaster. Stepping towards the desk, Stein sorted through the papers with his eyes until one stood out and he picked it up, silently holding it out for Spirit to see. The man grunted, half in appreciation and half in irritation, and took the report from him. In the moment before Spirit had taken it, Stein had seen nothing about Hemlock and Second on the paper. So no one knew about the phone call.

He didn't feel relieved like he thought he might. Instead, it was that same tension of dread that he'd felt whenever Spirit would wake up dazed and confused after Stein had prodded him with alchemy. It didn't feel good. Because it wasn't good. It was bad. He had known that then. He knew it now. And yet he still stayed quiet.

* * *

Tugging his jacket further around his neck, Stein hunched his shoulders to block the wind from his face as he walked towards his hotel room door. He'd spent the entire morning in the office with Spirit, combing over reports of sightings and tips received on the hotline. It had been an unpleasant morning, both of them feeling trapped and uncomfortable, taking turns glancing at the clock before returning to files.

Waiting, Stein had concluded, was one of the worst feelings he could possibly imagine. It was only a matter of time before the other body was found, but so far, there had been no reports. Were they perhaps clinging to life, Medusa's success wavering by a hair? If the victim did survive, would they even know or would Medusa vanish back into the shadows, taking any chance of retribution with her?

No, he didn't think so. She would contact him again if that were to happen, one last attempt to bring him over to her side. He would have to go to see for himself. She knew that he wouldn't be able to resist. The idea of a perfect chimera was far too tempting to ignore. Of course, it would be a set up. He would tell Marie and Spirit if it ever came to that. He would.

Another issue, perhaps an even greater one considering how cramped Spirit's spacious office began to feel after a while, was the fact that Marie didn't show up. After an hour, Stein stared at the clock, wondering what was she was doing. He pictured her going to a coffee shop where she could buy breakfast bagel sandwiches and coffees for the both of them, but then what? She had expressed interest in wanting to check on Maka today, but surely she would have called to inform them once she reached the Evans residence. Unless their extreme care to take precaution meant that they wanted to keep Marie's visit a secret. No one outside of them was supposed to be aware of Maka's current whereabouts.

By the second hour, Stein and Spirit could barely stand being around one another. Stein's stomach had growled, reminding him that it had been almost a full day since he'd eaten and of Marie's absence. He caught Spirit staring at the picture of him and Marie, his mind clearly not on the case file before him. A joke about Marie getting lost, as she was wont to do in cities on her own, fell flat and both of them went silent.

Was this one of her attempts to push the two of them into talking and confronting one another again? Because it was not going to work. Spirit did not want to talk about anything personal and was doing his best to remain completely professional and Stein decided it was better to respect Spirit's wishes to remain impersonal than try to push the matter. A twisted version of what Marie wanted, but it worked.

However, almost four hours later, Stein was back at the hotel, aggravation and confusion swelling inside of him. It wasn't like Marie to stay out of contact this long on assignment. She was always good about checking in and sticking to protocol when he wasn't. Using the key the hotel had given him, he pushed the door open and called out, "Marie?" but there was no answer.

As the door shut slowly behind him, Stein took in the hotel room. Nothing looked out of place. As far as he could tell, everything was exactly as he remembered when he left this morning, minus Marie. Her bed was made, the towel from her morning shower folded, one of her uniforms missing from the closet, her key to the room as well. It looked like she had left the place for the reason she had told him this morning. So where was she?

Upon taking a second look around, he noticed one thing that was different: a blinking red light on the hotel phone's answering machine. Rooms didn't typically have one, but they'd had one installed in case an important call was made while they were out in the field. Walking over to the machine, Stein peered at it. The message hadn't been checked, but it could've been heard while it was being left if she had missed taking the call.

When Stein pressed the button, the machine told him the time of the call and then a familiar, slippery smooth voice came to life on the machine and his heart nearly stopped in his chest: _"Lieutenant-Colonel Mjolnir, I hope I didn't catch you at a bad time. I was just telling dear Maka that you might be busy, what with chasing your own tail and all."_ A pause for dramatic effect and then a short, little chuckle that made him clench his fists. _"But I thought it would be unfair if I didn't invite you to our little girl's night. It'd be nice to have another woman around, especially one that knows Stein as well as I do. We can swap stories about him. I'm dying to hear what it was like living with him in his alchemy lab, if he ever experimented on you just like he did Maka's daddy. Oh, probably not, he still has a weakness for you, doesn't he? Almost makes me jealous."_

Stein could barely breathe as he listened to the message. Opening a line of communication. Medusa had done more than just that. She'd blown a hole in the wall between them. If there was one thing about Marie that Medusa had known, it was that Marie would go to the ends of the earth to save an innocent child. And even if he had done his best to avoid talking about her, Medusa had to have known that Marie was his weakness. How long had she been watching them while they had been hunting her? What all had she seen? What all did she know?

He closed his eyes, listening to the last bit of the message. Medusa rattled off an address, somewhere on the outskirts of the city near the shipyard by the river. That place had been searched though. She must've used her alchemy to make her own lab somehow.

 _"And remember, sweet Marie, no boys allowed. This is for us girls only."_

The message clicked as it came to an end, the silence overwhelming him. The call had been made thirty minutes after he had left. Marie had still been getting ready when he'd walked out the door, unable to sit still and wait any longer, having been awake for over two hours. She'd told him that he could've woken her up, but he never disturbed her when she was sleeping. It reminded him too much of the times he'd crept up on Spirit while he was passed out drunk. She must have been almost completely ready when the call came, maybe brushing her teeth so she didn't hear it at first and then was too horrified to answer while the message played.

No boys allowed. Three simple words, but enough to let Marie know that Medusa would do something terrible to Maka if she warned Stein or Spirit about the call. Stein could see her now: throwing on her jacket and rushing out the door without a second thought to save Maka herself. She was an extremely capable soldier on her own and, as far as he knew, still a great shot - but that meant little against someone as terrifying, clever, and strong as the Vector Alchemist, who didn't need guns in order to fight.

The twisted, bloody body on Spirit's doorstep the morning before flashed in Stein's mind, except this time, he pictured one of Marie's small delicate hands peeking out and her eye patch lying on the ground next to it. The sudden mental picture nearly made Stein throw up on the spot and he took a shuddering breath to steady himself.

No, he couldn't think like that. He knew where Marie went. He knew where Medusa was. That was the point. She wanted him to confront both sides of himself together. He couldn't avoid it any longer.

Before Stein could run out the door, the same as Marie, the phone rang, interrupting the silence like a violent crash. He dragged his eyes back down to it, telling himself that it was nothing - probably just Spirit calling to see if he had heard from Marie, which he couldn't say, he couldn't talk about it, Spirit didn't know - but then his hand shakily reached down to grasp the receiver and he picked it up, cutting the ring off midway, and placed it against his ear. He said nothing. He could barely breathe, much less speak.

"Stein?" Marie's voice, shaky and weak. It almost caused him to drop the phone.

Jerking his other hand up to hold the phone with two hands, Stein practically gasped, "Marie-"

"So desperate sounding!" Medusa laughed, having taken back possession of the phone.

"Put her back on," Stein growled, clenching the phone so tight that he thought it might shatter in two. Just hearing Marie's voice for a second had nearly sent his heart into his throat.

"There's that Dog of the Military you hide so well," Medusa said instead, choosing to ignore his comment. She wasn't about to give him the satisfaction. Hearing Marie once was enough. It sent his mind into a rapid tailspin. He could feel himself losing control, to the point where he began to tremble. His alchemy seemed to pulse inside of him, desperate for some sort of release. "I thought that would get your attention. I had no idea it would work so well though! This pathetic witch steps back into your life and you forget about little ole me?"

Stein forced himself to calm down. There was no sense in getting so worked up in his hotel room. He was alone, far away from being able to help Marie or Maka. There was no sense in losing it now over the phone. "What are you doing, Medusa?"

"Well, I needed some new subjects - the last one, I'm afraid, didn't turn out as I'd hoped - and I thought, why, I haven't used an alchemist before! Maybe that would change things." The way Medusa talked reminded Stein too much of his own mind back when he'd first crossed the line with Spirit and later experimented on himself. It had sounded so logical at the time, a step in the right direction, and yet it wasn't. "Besides, I knew you needed a push. I'm trying to help you, Stein. She's holding you back! I'm here to set you free finally."

"If you hurt her-"

"I'm not going to hurt her," Medusa informed him. "You are."

Time stopped for a moment as Stein stared at nothing. He held the phone tightly, waiting to hear more, but all he could hear was his heartbeat pumping blood in his ear. Hurt Marie? No, he would never do that. He had done a lot of terrible things in his life. He had killed people. He had ruined lives. He had shattered dreams. He had used people's life sources up and then left them to rot afterwards. He had torn himself apart. There were a lot of things that he could not be forgiven for. It was a price he had agreed to pay. It was his own Truth.

But Marie? No, never her. Never Marie. He would cut himself down before he touched her.

"You have until midnight," Medusa announced, snatching him out of his horrified thoughts. "And Stein, you know the drill. If I catch wind of the military police, I'll kill them both right in front of you."

Stein frantically jumped to talk, "Let me speak-" but she hung up on him again.

For a moment, he stared at the phone, like it had personally hurt him, and then he slammed it back down. He would've destroyed it - alchemy began to crackle in his hand as he felt himself slipping, down down down - but he stopped himself at the last moment. Hands still on the phone, he sunk to his knees until his arms hung limply above him and he pressed his head against the sharp edge of the table.

 _Marie._ He had dragged her into this. He should've told her about the phone call. He didn't know what good that would've done, but it would have done something. It would have made her more wary, aware of who they were dealing with, a glimpse into the mind of a monster. No, he was the monster. She had seen into his mind and it hadn't stopped her from getting close before. She wasn't afraid of him. She should've been. Then she would've known better than to get mixed up into something with the Vector Alchemist. She would've been safe, happy, far away from this madness, his madness.

Medusa was right. He would hurt Marie. He had already made the first incision.

Without sitting or standing up from his spot, Stein dragged his hands until the phone fell onto the ground near his legs. Listlessly, he dialed a number and waited until he heard the typical greeting, "General Albern speaking."

"She's gone," Stein intoned and then ended the call. He didn't bother returning the phone to its hook, dropping it on the floor and leaving it off the hanger so that no one could call again. It didn't matter. Spirit would understand the message. That was all that needed to be said. Marie was gone. It would be obvious who had her. He would rush over to the hotel as he had done to his home yesterday.

And then, Stein would be forced to tell Spirit everything. Maka being in Medusa's clutches. The message left for Marie to trap her. The phone call. The secret message. This was a nightmare, his nightmare, and he felt like he had been the one to design it. This wasn't what he wanted. This was a disaster. This was hell.

* * *

It took Spirit fifteen minutes to arrive, but when he did, Stein was still on the ground, crumpled against the table. He heard the bangs on the door and Spirit's demands to be let in, but it took Stein a moment to gather himself to his feet and shuffle to the door. Once it was unlocked, Spirit burst inside, gun drawn, as if he expected Medusa to be hiding in the bathroom, and only stopped once he realized that there was only a withdrawn and dazed Stein in the room to fight with.

Taking in the sight of Stein, Spirit huffed and placed his gun back in its holster. "She's gone. That's why she didn't show up earlier. Medusa has her?" He needed to say something, but Stein couldn't get his tongue or lips to work, so he merely nodded his head. "How? What would make her act so recklessly and without backup?"

It turned out that Stein didn't needed to speak for Spirit to understand. He dragged his grey eyes up to meet Spirit's and stared at him blankly. Marie's weakness was her heart. She loved people so much and would do anything to save them. It was why she had joined the military in the first place. She wanted to protect innocent people. Such a naive dream. And who was more innocent than a child that had been pulled into this horror story against her will?

The color in Spirit's face drained until he was ghostly pale. He darted to the phone, snatching it up off the floor, and punched in a number. As it rang on the other end, his foot tapped nervously. "Hello? Yes, this is Maka's father. Is she-?" He froze as the other person on the end spoke and then swallowed. "Right, of course, dinner. I was just hoping she was still there. I...I got stuck at work and am going to be late. Thank you."

Slowly, Spirit hung up the phone, his own fears swallowing him whole. Stein could see it written on his face. It was the most terrified Spirit had ever looked, even worse than when he had realized that Stein had used him for his alchemy research, worse than when he shot a comrade in Ishval for turning and trying to kill Stein, worse than when Stein had carried a bleeding and weak Marie back into camp, worse than when Kami went into labor. It was Spirit's true horror, a look that mirrored the same terrifying chill Stein had felt back in Ishval when he had seen Marie's ruined eye.

Not Marie. Not Maka. Anyone but them.

"Where is she?" Spirit demanded in a whisper. When Stein didn't respond right away, his mind locked on so many terrible thoughts about Medusa's research, Spirit stormed him, grabbing him by the collar, and threw him back against the wall, knocking a generic picture to the ground. " _Where is she, damnit_?"

Stein's head slammed against the plaster when Spirit shoved him again and he could've sworn he heard his own voice yelling, _"Where is she?"_ She was gone. Taken. Where is she? The walls closed in on him. The heat kicked on, causing the curtains to move, but nothing else happened. They took her. She took her. Where is she?

He blinked, his glasses fallen askew from the impact, and gazed down at Spirit. "The shipyard."

Slowly, Spirit let go of him and took a step back, but he was still breathing heavily. "How do you know?" His gaze swung back to the phone, which he'd put back on the table. It had still been on the floor where Stein left it after calling him when he'd arrived. "You talked to Medusa?" Stein nodded his head. "When?"

"Right before I called you." Stein paused, letting it sink in, allowing Spirit to grasp the situation. There was still time. The phone conversation had happened recently. Maka was fine. Marie was fine. But then- "And yesterday afternoon."

Spirit's head snapped back up. "What do you mean?" But Stein didn't have to say anything for Spirit to know. He'd said all that he needed to say. Those three little words were damning enough. Spirit gawked at him, like he didn't know who Stein was anymore. And maybe he didn't. Maybe he hadn't been able to recognize Stein for a long time. Hell, there were times when his own reflection looked off to him. "You spoke to her yesterday and didn't say a damn thing about it today?" He bit his lip, trying to come up with excuses most like. Okay, maybe Stein didn't trust him. But there was one person that he did trust. "Did you tell Marie?"

"No." His voice was hoarse, like the admission didn't want to come out. Stein didn't look away from Spirit in shame though. He'd done what he had done and he...regretted it. Yes, he'd made a mistake. But there was no fixing it now. There was only saving them.

"Damnit, Stein, what the hell is wrong with you?" Spirit exclaimed, clenching his fists like he was close to punching Stein in the face. It would've been the first time that the redhead struck him, but it wouldn't be the first time that Stein deserved it. "Why would you keep information like that from us?"

"It didn't seem important at the time," Stein mumbled, though he knew it was a version of his own platitudes. It wasn't important. He was the last person to have spoken personally to the Vector Alchemist after she dropped off the government's radar - and he was the only person to speak to her since. She had gone out of her way twice to contact him without others knowing. And it wasn't important? No, of course it wasn't that. He was being selfish; he was acting erratic again. "She didn't give any pertinent information to the investigation."

"It doesn't matter, Stein!" Spirit yelled at him. "You speak to the serial killer that we're trying to capture; you let your partners know!" He turned on his heels and ran his fingers through his hair. It wasn't neat like it usually was. He had been stressed out and slacking on his usual hygiene regimen. "You're a disaster, Stein, a goddamn mess. I tried to convince the Fuhrer to keep you out of the field, but the man insisted."

Stein stiffened. "You tried to keep me off the case?"

"Of course I did! You think I wanted to work with you?" Spirit began to pace the hotel room, as he had done in his living room yesterday morning, but there was a definite increase in his agitation and desperation. His fingers kept twitching towards his service weapon, but then he'd drop his hand back down to his side, clenching his fists so hard that he was sure to dig his nails into his palms. "You're barely holding yourself together. If the government wasn't so eager for your research, who knows what you would've done. Except I do. I know damn well what you're capable of. The last thing you needed was this case - this _woman_ \- floating around in your mind. You'd get in over your head - you'd drown in your desire to _know_ everything - and now look at you!"

In a way, it felt like the scalpel was slicing down his chest all over again, except this time, instead of blood pouring out, it was all his insecurities and fears. Stein had thought that only Marie knew him or that Medusa was capable of truly understanding him, but it appeared as if he was wrong. Spirit knew him too. He knew the ugly truth about Stein firsthand that he had struggled to deal with himself. That for all his strength, for all his skill in alchemy, he could be very weak. Spirit had seen Stein at his lowest, at his worse, and it had been terrible. It hadn't been great, like Medusa claimed it would be. It had destroyed so much. _He_ had destroyed so much. And for what?

"But the Fuhrer was certain that it had to be you - that you would be fine - and if you weren't, well" - Spirit scoffed and waved a hand in the air - "there would be Marie, to cushion your fall. Marie, to hold you together. Marie, to keep you in line. It wasn't fair - using her like a sacrifice to save you. She deserves more than that. But she agreed and there was nothing else I could do."

Stein glanced at her bed, neatly made, as everything else was in her life. "Did she tell you that it was her decision when you argued with her about it?"

"Of course she did," Spirit spat, "but you know Marie. She'll cross a desert without any water for someone she cares about. And she loves you, Stein. God help her, she still bloody loves you."

Those words hurt more than anything else Spirit could've said. He could have said that he hated Stein - that he would never forgive him - that even Marie hated him - but nothing could quite compare to the realization that it was the exact opposite. Marie loved people. She was kind-hearted, good-natured, and bright. She was like the sun; she brought light into people's lives. And he was, well, the other side. He could not confess to even being a good person deep down. The idea that she would still love him, after all that he had done, made him feel sick.

Hanging his head, Stein held his face with his hands, his fingers digging into his hair. "We have to get them back."

"I know." Spirit collapsed onto her bed, looking terribly fragile. Stein peered at him between his fingers, wanting to yell at Spirit to get out. He couldn't look like that in front of him, not after how Stein had betrayed him, but Stein merely looked away, almost like he was ashamed.

"I can't-" Stein's throat constricted. He couldn't get the words to come out.

But he didn't need to. Spirit knew. "I know," he sighed in a strangely gentle voice. "I know."

How could Stein have been so blind? How could he have let his mind get the better of him? He'd let Medusa slip in uninvited and shake things up, made him lose sight of what mattered. Even worse, he still wanted to know. At that realization, he almost started to laugh, but he caught himself at the last minute. Laughing was too close to crying and he hadn't cried since before he could walk and talk.

 _Where is she?_

Marie.

 _I can't lose her too._

I know.


	6. Arcanum, Arcana

As if he truly was a Dog of the Military, Stein could've sworn that he could smell the alchemy in the air. He and Spirit stood outside of the warehouse that Medusa had directed Marie to on the message, staring at it like the doors might open and physically swallow them whole like some sort of sentient monster. Spirit had grown paler the closer they got to their destination, his hands and fingers twitching and his feet shuffling. Gone was the cool and charming General Albern of before; now only a terrified and determined father remained.

For his part, Stein had remained deceptively blank since leaving the hotel. He'd forced himself to shut down, block all thoughts of his mind, if only because they were proving to be too much of a distraction. He had never had a panic attack before, despite everything that he'd gone through, but he had come to the conclusion that having one now would only be disastrous. It wouldn't be like everyone else. It could be dangerous for anyone around him and he needed to focus.

"Are you sure this is the place?" Spirit asked, sweeping his head around. They appeared to be the only ones in the area. It looked as if no one had been here for a while.

"Yes." Stein didn't need to check the address again. He knew this was the place. He could feel it. Alchemy had always had the feel of life to him, in his mind, and he felt that here - and yet, he also sensed a powerful wave of death, as if the alchemy had been twisted for some darker purpose. And it had been. Medusa was no innocent.

The two of them pushed the heavy doors open and stepped inside. It was dark, lit only by the moon peeking in front of the high windows, and empty as far as they could see. This would be used for storage soon, but right now, it remained forgotten. They swept around the room, Spirit holding a gun and flashlight with proficiency, Stein with his hands dug in the deep pockets of his white jacket. Nothing seemed out of place. Nothing was here. It was completely empty inside.

Spirit was holstering his service weapon when he stepped next to Stein, who was staring down at a clean patch on the ground. "She isn't here. Stein, what if Medusa was lying?"

"No, she wanted- Marie," Stein said, changing the name at the last minute. He opted for Marie's name instead of "me," which felt too loaded. If Spirit noticed Stein's hesitation, he didn't say anything, but he was likely too distracted. Crouching, Stein pulled a gloved hand out of his pocket and ran a fingertip on the floor until it hit a wall of dust. He tapped the ground, eyes focused in front of him.

"What is it?" Spirit questioned. "They probably just cleaned the place since they're about to use it again."

"Just this one section?" Stein peered up at the other man, catching his apprehensive expression, and motioned for the flashlight. Spirit handed it over and Stein swept the beam around the area. His mouth fell open in a little "aha" moment as his suspicions were confirmed. Pulling a piece of chalk out of his other pocket, he quickly drew a transmutation circle on the ground. "Did you see the marks? Alchemy was used on the floor."

When he pressed his hand to the finish transmutation circle, white light zigzagged on the floor and flashed around them, nearly blinding the both of them, until it disappeared to reveal an opening and stairs that led downward. Stein stood up and handed the flashlight back over to a gaping Spirit. Just as he'd suspected when he had first figured out where the address Medusa had given was located. She'd created a secret lab in an otherwise innocuous place that no one could find unless they knew exactly what to look for.

Only an alchemist could find her. Only an alchemist could give her away.

After glancing at each other, Stein and Spirit began to descend down the hidden stairwell. It was pitch black except for the flashlight, but dry and clean since it had been made with alchemy. Stein would've been impressed if they weren't dealing with a serial kidnapper and killer. At the bottom was a metal door with no handle or window. It only took a little chalk to get it open though. The practical uses of alchemy were endless if one applied their mind.

Spirit sucked in a hiss of air in between his teeth at the sight of what laid before them. The alchemy lab that Medusa had constructed underground was larger than either of them had anticipated. There were large tubular vats filled with water, some with strange-looking animal chimeras floating on the inside. Much of the equipment here would've looked familiar in his lab. There were empty cages and tables covered with medical tools. It looked like the perfect lab.

It must have taken her months to build this place and it couldn't have been alone. Stein could see it now: Medusa charming enthusiastic alchemists with anti-government leanings, most of them probably on the fringe or off the grid completely, into helping her - only to turn on them and use them in her experiments instead of being a part of them. It tied up loose ends and made use of them.

It was what Stein would've done if he had lacked all moral scruples, but then again, Spirit could easily attest that he didn't have any.

"Papa!" a voice cried out and both of them jerked their eyes in that direction. Locked in a small cage meant for an animal was Maka, her knees curled up under her to give her more space and her hands gripping the bars, face white with fear. They weren't electric then. That would make things easier.

"Maka!" Spirit gasped, starting in the direction of his daughter.

Five knives were thrown into the ground in front of Spirit, stopping him cold. All Stein had time to do was shout, "Spirit!" before the circle the knives created lit up and exploded, smoke dusting up everywhere, and knocking Spirit off his feet. Stein tried to reach out to catch him, but it was too late. Spirit was blown back into a wall, his head smacking against the concrete hard enough to bounce. When the smoke cleared, Spirit was lying on the ground completely still, knocked out cold by the blast. The impact would've rendered anyone unconscious.

Stein was still staring at the prone form of his old best friend when laughter began to echo throughout the lab. He tore his eyes away to search the lab, only to connect eyes with a silent and grim-looking Marie, who was locked in a similar cage next to Maka. Unlike the younger girl, her hands and feet were bound and she wore tape over her mouth. The touch was more personal and more violent as well. Medusa had spent more time with Marie and had decided to degrade her as well. It made Stein's stomach lurch.

"I'm not surprised that you brought your dear old friend," Medusa announced as she walked into the open, wearing a Cheshire grin and slowly clapping her hands. "I won't count that against you, Stein." She tilted her head, leaning forward to peer closer at Spirit, who remained dead to the world. "Although he doesn't look too good right now. Head wounds can be so messy."

Stein's breath almost hitched when he saw Medusa. She was just as he remembered, as if she had stepped right out of his mind. Cunning, devious, bright, mischievous - and dangerous, very dangerous. She was, in her own way, beautiful as well, but like a dangerous wild animal. Her delicate-looking hands could be just as deadly as a knife and with all that knowledge in her head, who knew what she was capable of.

Well, Stein knew. He'd been chasing after her handiwork for a while now.

"I'm glad you could make it," Medusa sighed happily. "I've missed you truly - so has the research, I think."

"Alchemy isn't sentient," Stein pointed out. "You're just becoming delusional."

Medusa folded her arms across her chest. "Are you saying that you didn't miss me - that you didn't miss this?" Still holding onto her elbow, she gestured with her forearm and free hand to the lab. "I think you did. It's why you've been so eager on the hunt, not to stop me, but to look at the work with your own eyes. I know you, Stein. I wasn't on your mind; the alchemy was. You can't lie to me. I know you. "

Her eyes were almost feverish as she gazed at him, like some sort of crazed fanatic. But no, he knew that was wrong. She was every bit in control. She was only trying to get on his level, lull him into agreeing with her. She was trying to match him. Even worse, a part of him did ache for that. No one in his entire life, not even the other alchemists that he had known, had ever understood him fully. They took his separation as something broken; they thought he was broken. Marie had been the tape keeping him together only so much.

But Medusa wasn't like that. When she had first asked to see some of his research and compare it with her own, she hadn't condemned him for how he had come across some of it. In fact, she had seemed to appreciate all of the sacrifices he'd made over the years. She knew all that he had lost and had respected him for it. How else were they to gain knowledge without giving something in return? It was simple. He had given a part of himself up in order to become the talented and renowned alchemist that he was today.

Except now he didn't know if it had been worth it. Medusa could make it worth it. She would never condemn him for what he had done, if only because she had done worse. It would feel good to not be the lowest.

"Forget about all of this," Medusa told him, coming closer to him. "Forget about them. You can be free! Think of it, Stein! No more collar tugging on you, demanding that you heel. No more babysitters keeping tabs on you and holding you back. No more people that don't have a clue telling you what to do, dictating your work, as if they could ever understand all that you're doing. Wouldn't that be nice? To be with someone that understands you, accepts you, nurtures you?"

It would be nice. The government had given him a grant for his research, a promotion for the destruction he had wreaked in Ishval, but it hadn't been out of the kindness of their hearts. No, they had been patches - to keep him silent, to keep him occupied, to keep him theirs. It was nothing but a cold machine while everyone else walked out of his life. He could have responded to Marie, but it wouldn't have been the same. Things had changed between them after Ishval and even more so after what he did to Spirit.

She didn't trust him.

He had been too afraid to face that reality. Marie had known what he was capable of and knew that he couldn't be trusted anymore. She had seen what he had done and had condemned him for it, whether she said so in words or not. She hadn't understood what he was going through - what he needed to do in order to save himself. She hadn't seen the warning signs that he'd desperately tried to give or perhaps hadn't understood them. Even if she did forgive him in the end, something fundamental had been broken between them, something they'd needed for their relationship to survive.

"I can make you better. I can give you more." Medusa held both of her arms out. "Look at what I've accomplished on my own. Think of what we could do - together! It would be limitless!" She held out a hand to him, so innocuous and simple. "Don't you want to know what that's like?" Yes. "Can't you taste it?" Yes . "You're so much more than this. You're not a monster. You're not a dog. You're an alchemist who deserves the knowledge he craves. You deserve to know ."

Stein shook his head, like he was trying to shake all the foggy and confusing thoughts out of his mind, but Medusa was relentless. She knew him in a way that no one else could ever know him - that horrifying part of him that he tried to squash and hide. Spirit had felt it, but Medusa could guide it. She knew what he needed - to make sense of things, to understand the way people ticked, in order to know the world - and she held the keys.

"Don't you want to understand?" Medusa asked him in a pleading tone. A part of him knew it was fake - she would never stoop so low as to beg him, her ego far too self-centered - but another part of him also craved to hear it, the need for him. Marie had never needed him, but he could admit now that he had needed her. She had been her own planet and he had been a malfunctioning satellite in her orbit. "Don't you want to know what you're missing instead of just knowing that you're missing something?"

But then his eyes swung to Marie, who was not fighting in her little cell like Maka. She remained calm, breathing steadily, her one golden eye focused solely on him. He saw the same gentleness in it now as he had back in the alley when she had held his scarred hands. It washed over him like waves and his mind began to still. His body, tense just seconds ago, began to relax and his fists unclenched. No, he knew what he was missing; he just didn't want to admit it - that he had done it to himself.

Medusa noticed the change in his demeanor and followed his gaze. When her eyes landed on Marie, a nasty scowl crossed her face before her lips twisted into a malicious grin. She strode to the cage and Marie backed against the bars to get away from her. Being bound left her little choice but to be dragged out by the other woman and Marie stilled when Medusa laid a palm against her neck. Stein's entire body jerked in response. He remembered the tattoos on Medusa's hands very well, allowing her to perform her special alchemy without drawing a transmutation circle.

"Oh, I get it now. She's not holding you back at all, is she? You're doing the work yourself." Medusa pursed her lips and tsked disapprovingly, like a teacher scolding a student. "Are you that desperate for company? Or do you truly think that she makes you better?" She laughed coldly. "She can't. You are who you are and you always will be. She'll never be able to change that and you'll never be what she needs. So selfish, Stein. I thought your work was more important to you than that."

Stein grit his teeth and clenched his fists. "It is."

But not as important as her.

How much had he lost because of his work? What he'd gained in its place didn't feel equal to him anymore. He'd put his work above everything else in his life for far too long and it had cost him dearly. His alchemy, as much as he had once loved it, was something else these days, a terrible darkness that had grown out of his control. Was it even his anymore? And this, Medusa's work, would never be his either. It would never make him feel whole. It would never fill the void that he'd been steadfastly ignoring for years, filling it with piles of research and countless hours of work.

Medusa's eyes flickered to Marie; she ran them slowly over Marie, the gaze suggestive and dangerous. It looked as if she was mapping every weak point in Marie's body, pinpointing the spots she could prick that would cause the most damage. The spilled blood in all the crime scene photos came to mind, except this time, he also thought of the blood spilling out of Marie's ruined eye. The images shuddered together until they were one and he felt like his heart might physically stop in his chest.

"She is pretty, isn't she?" Medusa hummed thoughtfully, using her free hand to drag a finger down Marie's cheek, causing her to jerk back, but she didn't move otherwise. With Medusa's palm laid strategically against her, she didn't have to bother holding Marie down. All it would take to destroy Marie was a second and they all knew it. "I don't see the appeal beyond that, of course, but to each their own." She tilted her head. "I can be kind though."

"Doubtful," Stein retorted.

A sharp smile cut across her face. "I can be generous then. Would you like that, Stein?"

Stein narrowed his eyes, but said nothing in response. He didn't think he would like anything from Medusa. She wasn't the giving type. Even her alchemy research, as much as it had fascinated him before, had turned sour for him now that it was being used against him and it was threatening Marie's life.

"We're both alchemists here," Medusa stated. "It's only fair that we live by the greatest law of alchemy: the law of equivalent exchange." She ran her fingers through Marie's hair, catching his attention and forcing him to think of all the times he had wanted to do the same thing. It felt like a bastardized version though, dirty, like he shouldn't be watching but also couldn't look away. "A life for a life."

It felt as if the air had been sucked right out of his lungs, but he forced himself not to react. This isn't happening, a desperate part of his brain told him. It's just another one of your nightmares. He'd had them growing up, but they had been shapeless then and forgettable after a while. Then Ishval came and gave his nightmares frightening life. They had only gotten worse as time went on until he was finally here, living the nightmare in his waking hours.

"What do you say?" Medusa asked pleasantly. The tone sounded horrifying coming from her. How had he not seen her for the poisonous snake that she was from day one? "I only need two subjects for my experiment, but I see three possibilities here." Marie jerked against her now, but whimpered against the tape over her mouth when Medusa's hand against her neck squeezed. "I could spare your sweet, dear Marie in place for your old pal, Spirit." Medusa let out a light laugh. "He's already been used as fodder for alchemy experiments, hasn't he? He'll be used to it. What is he to you anymore anyways? Nothing. He feels nothing but contempt for you. Just another worthless military drone. Who will miss him?"

Despite being called out, Spirit still didn't move from his spot, knocked out cold. It wouldn't surprise Stein if there was serious damage. But the idea of Spirit going through that again, this time conscious and aware, made Stein feel as if the world was spinning dangerously fast. Spirit hadn't deserved what Stein had put him through; Stein could not - would not - put Spirit through it again.

But Marie… Marie was important. He had abandoned her before. He couldn't do it again. Spirit would get that, wouldn't he? He knew how Stein felt about Marie, even if the words had never been said out loud. Spirit knew that there would be nothing left but pieces of Stein if anything were to happen to her - and it wasn't up to Spirit to help put those pieces back together. He owed Stein nothing but the contempt he felt. It would be easy to choose Marie over Spirit, but it would be too difficult to come to terms with the consequences.

Maka screamed in her cage, crying out and shaking the bars. "Papa!" Furious, terrified tears streamed down her face. She looked as if she wanted to both fight Medusa head on, but also crawl to her father. She was a very brave girl, Stein couldn't help but think, but a girl nonetheless. And anyone would be reduced to fear when faced with being held captive for an alchemy experiment.

"And then there's the girl!"

Medusa squealed in delight, dragging Marie closer to Maka's cage. Marie stumbled to keep up with her feet bound and almost fell to the ground, but Medusa held her up. The second Medusa was too close, Maka scrambled to the other side of the cage in a desperate attempt to keep farther away from the older woman. Her bright green eyes were wide and her face paled. Stein caught a glimpse of burn marks on her pale forearms when the sleeves of her jacket fell back. What had Medusa done to her?

"So innocent, so full of potential," Medusa sighed. Her eyes seemed to glitter as she leaned down and gazed into Maka's cage. "Remember when we were this young? We thought we could change the world with our knowledge; we thought we were invincible!" She straightened back up and tossed her head to look back at Stein. "And who knows? Maybe she can. Maka and I had plenty of time to get to know each other and she's a very bright girl. It would be a shame to snuff that out so soon. Don't you think?"

"Medusa…" It was impossible. What she was asking of him was impossible. Stein couldn't possibly make this sort of decision. He couldn't decide who was to live and who was to die. It wasn't right. It wasn't his right and it wasn't hers. They weren't gods. He'd played with people's lives - their very being - for a long time, but this was too much. This was true madness. This was too much power. This was too much freedom. He felt trapped by it, smothered by the weight of this, and struggled to breathe, much less speak.

In response, however, Medusa just tutted her tongue, her grasp on Marie still uncomfortably tight. Marie's eye was beginning to water, but it wasn't from fear or grief. It was from pain - physical or emotional, he couldn't be sure. "Do you think Spirit would forgive you for allowing his daughter to die? Do you think he'd accept your decision to choose this worthless woman" - and here, she shook Marie - "over his precious little girl? Sure, they're close friends, but we both know who Spirit would choose."

Stein closed his eyes. He couldn't look at Maka's face. To be perfectly honest, she meant very little to him. He hadn't seen her since she was a little girl before the other day and he hadn't thought of her much then. His life would barely change if she died. No, Spirit would never forgive him, but he was never going to forgive Stein for what he had already done. He would not lose Spirit because of this.

Marie though - the tears in her wide eye, the sudden fear in them, they weren't for herself. They were for Maka; they were Spirit; they were even for Stein himself. She loved them so much. He knew her to her very soul. She would willingly sacrifice herself to save them. In her mind, giving her life for Maka's was easy to do. Spirit would do the very same. He would take his daughter's place in a heartbeat. Stein couldn't accept that.

His mouth opened and words began to come out, "I could-" but they died on his tongue when he saw Medusa's lips twist into a frown. No, she wouldn't allow that. She made the rules, not him. He was just a player in her game still. He wasn't free yet. He would have to give up a part of himself before he could be given freedom. He would have to allow a piece of himself to die in order for anyone else to live or Medusa would kill all three. This was his sacrifice too. He had to lose something, just to save something in return.

"Still need convincing?" The frown on her face turned ugly and disgusted. In a flash, she ripped the tape off of Marie's mouth and unceremoniously shoved her to the ground. Stein took one step towards her before freezing when Medusa held up a threatening hand.

Marie greedily sucked in air, her nails digging into the concrete, and her entire body trembled with carefully held back energy. Still breathing heavily, she lifted her head and gazed up at him. "Stein…" He knew that voice. It took him back to the day she left, even if he didn't want to be there. He shook his head. No, no, he didn't want to hear it. He didn't want this. "You have to choose Maka."

Stein's hands went to his face, the heels of his palms pushing up his glasses and digging into his eyes, his fingers tangling in his hair. He couldn't look at her. He tried to picture something else, anything, but all he could think about was blood pouring from between her fingers down her face. Maka was nothing to him. A child, yes, and innocent, sure, but in the long run, she wouldn't matter to him. He didn't need her; he didn't want her. At the end of the day, her life was disposable, as callous as it sounded, and if he chose Marie, maybe Spirit would never wake up, and he'd never know what Stein had done.

"Listen to me, Stein," Marie told him, her voice shaky but strong. "You have to choose Maka."

"I can't. I-"

"Franken," and her voice was so soft, as quiet as his that night in the Ishval desert, as gentle as it had been the day she moved out. He knew that voice too well. It still called to him when things were too quiet and it demanded his attention, forcing him to remove his hands from his face and gaze back at her.

Marie was saying goodbye.

"It's okay," she said, and he thought she meant it, even if he knew that she was also scared. Bound as they were, her hands shook and she licked her dry lips. His eyes snapped to them and he couldn't look away. Her lips struggled to lift into a smile, just for him, but they wouldn't cooperate. She couldn't lie that much. "I've… We've all done a lot of terrible things. We've killed people, Stein - you, Spirit, me. I have blood on my hands too. There's not much left for me to do, is there?"

She was wrong. There was so much more for her out there. She deserved more. She deserved to find someone that would love her just as much as she loved them - someone that would be able to tell her and show her every day how much they cared about her - someone that would know it and mean it with all their heart. She deserved that white picket fence that she had always daydreamed about. She deserved life. She was good, so good, and he could never figure out why she shined so brightly, just that he'd felt dim and stunted without her.

"But Maka is young - she's innocent and so full of hope." Marie pushed herself to sit on her knees, wobbling a bit on the uneven surface. "She can do better than us - she can be better. This has nothing to do with her. This has everything to do with us - our past, our sins, our consequences that we never faced."

"We…" Stein staggered towards her, but again Medusa forced him back. "I never faced them, but I can't do it like this. It's not fair. It's not… This isn't equivalent ."

Marie closed her eye and sighed. "A life for a life. That seems equivalent to me."

"Two lives for one is not equal!"

"But maybe two corrupted, stained lives can equal one pure, good one." When Marie opened her eye, this time, she smiled. It wasn't sharp like Medusa's, but it cut him more than any of hers ever could.

Marie's true smile was like the sun and it killed him to see it in a dark time like this. It made him remember all the times he'd laid on his cot in Ishval after horrific missions, sweltering in his tent and staring ahead, while he listened to Marie humming soothingly as she ran her fingers through the fringes of his hair. His eyes would flicker to hers when she stopped and she would smile at him. Those simple moments had been the only things to bring him back to himself sometimes.

He didn't know how she could smile then and he couldn't fathom it now. All he could think was, Why her? Why Marie? Why not him? Did he not deserve to be sacrificed? He would take her place. He deserved as much. Or was that too selfish of him to ask as well? Would he do it for himself? Or would he do it for her?

"Franken," Marie breathed, "please."

Medusa snatched Marie from the ground, jerking her roughly to her feet again, but this time, Medusa held a gleaming knife against Marie's throat along with a palm splayed against her face. "You let her call you that?" The sneer on Medusa's face was resentful, dripping with venom. Hate was a monstrous emotion, one that he'd never quite managed to muster. Seeing it directed so forcefully towards Marie was shocking. "I must admit: she's better at manipulating you than I am." Her edge of the knife pushed against the pale skin of Marie's throat. "Time's up, Stein. Make the decision or I'll make it for you."

This wasn't freedom. This wasn't what he wanted. He didn't care about the knowledge. He didn't care about the alchemy. This wasn't right. It was a twisted version of equivalent exchange that he couldn't accept. Medusa was twisting something that made up the core of him into a nightmare and he felt lost.

But he knew where he had to go. He just didn't want to make that turn.

He would though - for Marie and for Spirit. He owed that much to them., didn't he?

Stein hung his head. Medusa's sneer transformed into a grin. Marie took a breath.

"It's your lucky day, my dear," Medusa hissed into Marie's ear, her eyes locked onto Stein. "You're going to help me make history."

"I'm not helping you do anything, you monster," Marie growled before elbowing Medusa in the gut. Medusa doubled over more in shock than pain, but moved to strengthen her grasp as Marie slipped away from the knife. Stein began to run forward as red light began to crackle around Medusa's palm when she snatched Marie by the arm, knowing full well that it would be too late by the time he reached them, only for the alchemy to be violently cut off when a loud crack rang out and Medusa screamed.

Marie staggered backwards until she fell to the ground due to her bound ankles, breathing heavily and watching Medusa stumble as she grasped her hand, which was bleeding. Blood seeped between the fingers of her good hand, dripping onto the floor, as she gasped for air. Stein froze at the sight, taken aback, until he heard a scraping noise behind him. When he turned around, he blinked until he realized what he was seeing was true. Spirit was clumsily pushing himself to his feet, his gun shaking in his hands but aiming true.

Blood was seeping down the side of Spirit's face and into one of his eyes, blending in with his hair, but there was fire in his one open eye as he snarled, "Not bad for a pair of normals, huh?"

Sometimes, Stein forgot that alchemists were not above others. It appeared as if Medusa had done so as well.

Hissing furiously, Medusa stepped into a circle that she had made on the floor earlier and smacked her damaged hand against the ground, ignoring the hole in her palm. A red beam of pure energy ran directly towards Spirit, this one with the intent to kill upon impact, but Stein jumped in front of it instead. Marie screamed. The red light hit him directly in his outstretched hands and carefully, using every inch of his strength, he was able to redirect the fatal alchemy to the left so that it hit one of the tanks and exploded.

Stein was weak from the effort, sweating and lungs desperate for air - meddling with his own energy to create a weapon was one thing, but fighting against someone else's was practically unheard of and incredibly dangerous - but it was what made him such an important State Alchemist. While Marie looked horrified, Medusa wore a shocked expression, as if she couldn't believe what she had seen. She, an alchemist who had been experimenting on humans, couldn't possibly understand experimenting on the alchemy itself.

"You're mad," Medusa gasped, partly in awe, partly in anger.

"Not as mad as you're going to be in a minute," Spirit told her. He waved a radio in the air, catching her attention, before dropping it to the ground, no longer needing it. Medusa narrowed her eyes and growled, seeing that her options were coming to a close.

With Medusa held at gunpoint, Stein hurried to Marie, trying to ignore the way his body felt frayed at the edges because of what he'd done with Medusa's alchemy. Marie kept her eye on his face as he undid the ties around her wrists and then jerked on the binds around her ankles. Finally free, she tumbled forward to throw her arms around Stein's neck, pulling him down to her. "You did something very reckless," she whispered.

Stein closed his eyes and breathed in her familiar scent. "I know."

"Back up will be here any minute," Spirit announced, utter disgust filling his voice. Stein pulled away from Marie and she pushed him forward so that he could break Maka out of her cage. As he did so, Marie stood up, warily watching Spirit and Medusa square off. Spirit was dangerous right now, but Stein didn't think he would do anything rash with his daughter around. "I should kill you before they get here for what you did to my daughter, but then I'd be no better than you. I'll have to settle for arresting you instead."

Kill her! a voice screamed in Stein's mind as he broke the lock on the cage. Maka scrambled out, but hung to the side, either too afraid to run anywhere near Medusa or too unsure of what to do. Stein slowly stood up and turned around to face the scene. You have to kill her! She's too dangerous!

How many people had their own naivety killed in the end? How many people had died because Stein had thought he could do good with his alchemy? It would be better, that part of him thought, to end her right now.

When Stein took a step towards her, Medusa snapped her eyes to him and connected with his. He could tell right away that she guessed his intent with her. After all, it was what she would do in his position. Loud thumps and shouts began to become apparent from above, letting them know that the military police that Spirit had alerted were in the building. It wouldn't be long before they were in the lab. Time was ticking. Stein felt that sensation again - he was running out of time - and didn't know what to do. He looked at her; she looked at him.

"I'm not going back," Medusa said, her words meant only for him. "I'm not going to be their lapdog."

"You don't have a choice," Stein pointed out.

Medusa smiled condescendingly, smug to the very end. "That's where you're wrong, Stein. You always have a choice. Some of them are just harder to see."

The other soldiers reached the bottom of the stairs, the beams of their flashlights bobbing in the air and blinding Stein momentarily. In that moment, a familiar crackle resounded in the air and there was a loud crack. Despite already being underground, the floor beneath them seemed to rumble, until Stein realized that it was actually the walls and ceiling that were breaking apart.

Both Stein and Spirit ordered, "Get back!" at the same time as the ceiling above them began to crumble in a straight line, concrete dropping to the floor between them and creating a wall between Spirit and the soldiers' side of the room and Stein's. Dust exploded around them as more slabs fell and forced everyone to throw their arms up and back away.

A few pieces outside of the line in the ceiling began to fall, including one that forced Stein to throw himself at Maka and knock her out of the way. It narrowly missed the both of them. Maka's bright green eyes were wider than he had ever seen anyone's eyes before as she curled underneath him and he allowed her to use his lanky frame as a shield.

The damage lessened on their side while Spirit and the soldiers were forced back. "Where is she?" Stein heard Spirit demand above the carnage's noise.

Stein twisted around and caught a glimpse of Medusa's black jacket at the other side of the room. She must have created the flaw in the lab in case she needed a diversion in order to escape. He pulled himself up, swaying as he did so, and connected eyes with her one last time. She wore a grim, nasty look on her face as she raised her undamaged palm in the air.

Stein wondered if he could do what he had done earlier again, but manipulating someone else's alchemy, especially when it was as vicious and pointed as hers, was still new to him. If she hit him this time, it would likely kill him. But he could still kill her as well. Unlike her right hand, which was a part of her alchemy, neither of his gloves had been damaged and he'd become a lot more deadly and skilled at long range attacks since she'd last seen his research. That had been the top priority of the government concerning his work and he had listened dutifully.

It was only a second - that was all alchemists needed - and Stein knew he could do it, just as he knew Medusa would. Her eyes glimmered and the smile spoke volumes ( goodbye ) and he was okay with it. A little more blood on his hands would be fine and then it would be over. Really, this was the best ending for everyone.

Red and white light crackled in the room. The hairs on Stein's arm stood on end and it felt as if his entire body was brimming with energy, his blood beginning to burn, his soul singing. The ceiling collapsed around them.

There was a scream - "No!" - a loud bang and Stein was left standing there gaping, his alchemy charged and ready, as Medusa crumpled to the floor. Papers flew in the air above her body, floating like leaves on the wind until they gently landed on the ground. Thick, red blood began to seep out from underneath her, staining the white paper until it touched the fallen concrete slabs.

Stein could barely breathe, shocked and confused, until his eyes moved and landed on Marie, who was leaning against a metal table and holding a gun in her hands. It was steady, unlike the way Spirit had been, and there was a hard, determined look etched into her face that he had never seen before. It wasn't the fury he had seen outside the alley when she'd told him about the new kidnappings or the fierceness when she had confronted him before. It was something else, something cold and precise that he hadn't thought her capable of, something that reminded him more of himself than her.

Marie took a shuddering, deep breath and dropped her hands, the gun hanging limply in front of her. With the nightmare gone, she slumped, as if it had taken everything in her to do what needed to be done, but she didn't let go of the weapon either. The shot was from a ridiculous angle and distance, one that even the best of soldiers would have had difficulty with, but Marie had hit her target spot on. It appeared as if the loss of her eye had not changed her sharp-shooting skills after all like he had feared.

He should've known better than to question it. Marie had always been the strongest of their group, no matter how small and kind she was. She was made of a metal that he could not imagine.

Stein moved towards her, placing his hands on her arms to keep her standing, and she leaned back against his chest, closing her eyes and breathing deeply. He held her gently because he knew that while she was stronger than him she was not impervious to everything. But he couldn't help but think that his proximity was not just beneficial to her. He needed to be close to her. He needed to feel her safe with him. Yes, it was selfish, but he could be selfish just this once with her after today.

"Stein," she said, her voice so small and faraway, "this isn't over."

He laid his chin on top of her head, taking in the smell of her shampoo. It was mixed with sweat and dirt. "No."

"Her research." Marie chewed on her bottom lip. "It's just as dangerous as her, isn't it?"

"The Fuhrer didn't really care about Medusa in the end, did he?" Stein asked.

Marie was quiet for a moment as she mulled over his question. Behind them, they could hear Spirit being reunited with Maka, both of them loud and desperate and so very loving despite all the tension between them. Soldiers were dispersing through the lab to search and secure the place. They did not have much time alone together left. Finally, she answered, "No."

It was a simple deduction really. Marie had shot Medusa without a second thought. All this time, Stein had thought that they wanted to find Medusa so they could rein her back in, put a much tighter collar on her, force her back under the government's thumb. That was where the government liked their State Alchemists. But there had been no hesitation in Marie in that moment. Sometimes, the gun was more important than the person. After all, there was always someone else that could pull the trigger in the end. With Medusa's complete research confiscated, there would be no real need for her, a troublesome alchemist who would never follow orders.

He thought of Medusa's words on the phone. Was she not a better person for refusing to allow the government to abuse her research for their own use? Hadn't they used his alchemy to put an end to the Ishval War, ordering him to essentially murder hundreds of people? He had given them the ability to use him, pushed him to dig deeper into his research, and it had had dire consequences for everyone involved. He could not think of worse people to have their hands on Medusa's dangerous alchemy research.

Pulling away from Marie, Stein said, "We have to go." She looked up at him questioningly, though there was a hint of understanding in her eye. "The ceiling is too unstable. This lab is going to be reduced to nothing any minute."

"That won't be enough time to search this area properly," Marie protested, but it was a lie. She didn't even put any real push behind her words.

Stein leaned sideways and pressed a hand against the wall to hold himself up. "We'll lose everything down here."

"A great loss for alchemy," Marie conceded. "It'll be a blow to the government."

"What a pity," Stein replied and a shadow of a grin appeared on his face. All it took was a short burst of energy from his palm to the wall and a crack began to race up the wall to the ceiling. When it connected with the already large gap above them, the entire room began to shake.

"The lab is collapsing! Everyone get out!" Spirit ordered. He hustled Maka up the stairs, half carrying her, as soldiers began to run through the room. Marie hurried as well, climbing over the fallen debris as the ceiling fell around them.

Before Stein ran to the door though, he rushed over to Medusa's body. The right alchemist could fix this damage if they were talented enough, but Stein wanted to be sure. There was a bullet hole in the middle of a notebook that Medusa was still holding against her chest, her eyes wide open and unseeing. He only had to take one glance at her to know that she was dead, but she wasn't the point. She had never been the point, not even to him. With a single touch of his hand to the ground, alchemy light blazed around her body, incinerating all the research that she'd painstakingly conducted over the past few years. Stein was surprised that it didn't hurt even a little to watch all that knowledge go up in flames. Nothing but ash was left in its place.

"Stein!" Marie called.

He stood up and, without taking another look, ran towards the door, narrowly missing being hit by falling debris or shrapnel from the equipment that was being destroyed around him. She was reaching out a hand to him and he took it, even though it was unnecessary, running up the stairs with her. With his long legs, he was able to easily outrun her, but he never pulled her to keep up with him. The entire warehouse was collapsing as soldiers shouted and dust clouded around them. Marie tripped over a metal beam, but quickly regained her balance before they burst out into the night air. The two of them staggered to join everyone else watching as the warehouse folded in on itself.

"Thank God you made it," Spirit gasped as he stepped forward to hug Marie. Stein let go of her hand so that she could return the hug in full. Maka hung behind him, like she was too skittish to be parted from her father for too long. "I was so terrified. I didn't know… When I came to and heard you talking, it took everything in me not to panic and give myself away."

"It's okay," Marie said in that miraculous soothing tone of hers. Yes, she really was better at manipulating people than Medusa, except it was never manipulation to her. She just genuinely cared about them. "Everyone is safe. We're alive. That's all that matters."

"Yes, yes…" Spirit awkwardly pulled away from Marie, though he didn't take his hands off of her shoulders. His eyes slid over to Stein. There was something strange in them that Stein didn't recognize at first until he realized that it was damn near the same look Spirit had given him after Stein had stumbled out of the medic tent the night of Marie's attack. A strangely hard look of understanding, fear, and concern. He was trying to be General Albern again, but it wasn't coming through. "The Vector Alchemist's research?"

"Lost, most likely destroyed," Stein answered. "One of the tanks near Medusa's body exploded."

"I see."

Spirit never took his eyes away from Stein's, holding his stare longer than anyone else besides Marie. He hadn't always been able to do that, not even before finding out that Stein had experimented on him. But then, this was the first time he had nearly lost his daughter. Some things were much more terrifying than the past. The stare told Stein something else though: Spirit knew that Stein was lying. He had no proof, of course, but if he said or did anything, as a General, he could effectively destroy Stein.

Marie, in turn, gazed up at Spirit firmly enough to where it would've been impossible not to notice. He gripped her shoulders tightly. She stood stiffly under him, her hands balled at her sides, ready to defend Stein. With a few words, Spirit could possibly ruin the both of them.

"I'll inform the Fuhrer tomorrow," Spirit said in a crisp, knowing voice. "He'll be very disappointed that we failed the mission, but I'm going to consider getting a murderer off the streets a success." The tension visibly vanished from Marie's body. He returned his gaze to her, squeezing her shoulders reassuringly, and then pulled away so that Maka could rush to him and snuggle against his body, allowing him to wrap an around her. "Tonight though, I'm taking my daughter to the hospital to make sure she's okay and then home. I suggest you do the same."

"Can I...?" Maka bit her lip shyly. "Can I call Soul? He must be freaking out by now."

"Sure, of course," Spirit sighed as he bent down to kiss Maka on the top of her head. It was a testament to how badly the situation had shaken her that she let him do so without comment. He looked back to Stein and Marie. "I'll see you tomorrow at noon. I want to end this as quickly as possible."

"Yes, sir, of course," Marie responded.

"And, hey, Marie" - Spirit smiled weakly at her - "thank you."

It wasn't nearly as much as she deserved for what she had done - for what she would've done - but Marie beamed like it was the only thing in the world she needed and nodded her head. They watched as Spirit led Maka to a car and got in, driving back home. That left Marie and Stein with the soldiers as they began to secure the area, though there wasn't much left of the warehouse. It had basically fallen into the pit of the alchemy-created lab. It would take a very long time to clean this mess up and it wouldn't be worth the work. Somehow, that felt more satisfying.

"Come on, Stein," Marie said, reaching out to him. It felt strangely natural to take her hand again, like it had been something that they always did. "Let's go back to the hotel."

"The hospital?" Stein inquired. He remembered the marks on Maka's skin - he doubted that Medusa would've let Marie go unscathed - but she was hiding whatever pains she went through well. Ever since she'd lost her eye, she had tried to hide whenever she was hurt until it could no longer be ignored. She was stubborn like that.

Marie shook her head. "It can wait. I'm fine. What I desperately need is a shower and a bed."

They were such simple, absurdly normal things, especially after the madness that had just happened, but Stein thought that they were exactly what he needed as well. A little normalcy was what he truly craved. He just hadn't known it until now. He let her guide him to another vehicle that was waiting for them and climbed into the back next to her. She leaned against him, resting her head against his shoulder. The weight of her against him was both comforting and electrifying. They were silent the entire ride, but he didn't think words needed to be said.


	7. Solification

She forced him into the shower first because she insisted that she would take longer and he needed more time to unwind before sleep than she did. Truth be told, Stein didn't know if he would be able to sleep for a week. All of the horrors he had witnessed since coming to East City kept flashing through his mind with such vividness that he knew the images would haunt his sleep as well as his waking hours. However, he didn't argue and the hot water of the shower did seem to help wash away the tension in his aching muscles.

Forehead pressed against the cool tiles, he kept thinking of Marie's voice - the way she said goodbye without actually saying goodbye. It would have been easier if she had cried, he thought, but she had held herself together so tightly. She'd been afraid, but she had accepted her role as well. He hated the way she was so willing to give up her life and not just for Maka. It had been for him as well. She made the decision so he wouldn't have to, not because he couldn't. She never should have been put in that situation. He should've stopped it from happening instead of letting himself get lost in his head.

Once he was finished, he stepped out of the bathroom and Marie graciously slipped inside. Just as she'd guessed, she did take longer in the shower. He changed into a pair of pajama pants that he hadn't worn in who knew how long and sat at the foot of his bed. His wall of crime scene photos and notes had been taken down by Marie while he was showering, hidden away in a stuffed folder on top of the desk. Standing up, he walked over to the desk and fingered the top of the folder, itching to peer inside again and dip into Medusa's madness, but instead he picked it up and dumped it into the trash. It was just a copy anyways. His notes were an unnecessary addition.

When he sat back down again, Marie stepped out of the bathroom, towel drying her hair. She was wearing her light blue pajamas, pants and a button up shirt, looking soft and light and reminding him of clouds. He also noted that the clothes hide her skin quite well, so that he wouldn't be able to see any marks or bruises, but decided not to push it. If she wanted or felt comfortable, she would tell him in time.

Besides, a heavy weight suddenly came over him when they connected eyes. For the first time in many years, he was truly well and tired . His mind, running in overdrive for so long, was spent and desperately wanted to fully shut down. Maybe he wouldn't dream tonight after all.

Without speaking, they readied themselves for bed. It was in the early hours of the morning. Spirit was probably just now getting home from his trip to the hospital with Maka. He'd made their meeting later in the day so that they would have time to rest up, even if it felt like they needed a few days. Stein didn't think it fair that Marie was not given the option to recuperate, but he could understand the desire end this as soon as possible.

Medusa was dead. Her research was gone. There was nothing more that they could do. It was over.

Stein laid very still in his bed as Marie puttered around the room. He mostly stared at the ceiling, but couldn't help but watch her out of the corner of his eyes as she moved, like he was afraid that she would vanish the second he took his eyes away from her. But no, she was fine. She was here. She was alive. He watched her take her eye patch off and set it on the bedside table next to his glasses and then hesitate, staring down at them. Without saying a word, she turned to meet his gaze, a sheepish and vulnerable expression on her face. She wasn't trying to hide the scars over her ruined eye, not like she normally did.

He didn't need her to say anything for him to understand the question hanging between them. Instead, he scooted over against the wall and allowed her to crawl into the bed next to him. She left some space in between them at first, letting him adjust to her presence in case he needed it, but he found it unsatisfactory. When he reached to gently pull her closer to him, she took a sharp intake of breath, but then rolled onto her side to lean into him, pressing her face against his chest and throwing an arm over him. Being so small, it was like she was curled up underneath his arm, but despite this incredibly unusual and new scenario, it felt as if she...fit. They fit together. It didn't make him uncomfortable as he'd once considered physical intimacy.

Instead, it felt a lot like a release.

Contrary to what everyone suspected, they had never shared a bed together. Maybe the thought had crossed his mind every once in a while (they had been young and idealistic once upon a time, hadn't they?), but it had never happened. Because of his own boundaries or Marie's, he wasn't sure. But it felt good, peaceful, like he could finally breathe again. It wasn't a lot, truth be told, but it was more than he'd ever had before.

"I was afraid," Stein abruptly said, his voice cutting through the silence. Marie stiffened against him, but she didn't say anything, waiting for him to continue if he wanted. He wasn't sure if he did, but now that he'd started, he knew that he had to finish. "When you left, it felt like the entire world was changing from underneath me, but a part of me was grateful that you were gone. I…" He closed his eyes. "I was afraid of what I'd do to you."

Marie relaxed, her entire body going soft. "You would never have hurt me."

"You don't know that," Stein said quietly. " I don't know that. I hurt Spirit."

"Yes, you did," Marie replied, "but you had a lot more opportunities with me and it didn't even cross your mind."

The pathetic truth, one Medusa had almost tricked him into ignoring, was not that he had been afraid to admit that Marie had left because she hadn't trust him; it was that he had been too afraid to let her back into his life because he hadn't trusted himself.

Stein opened his eyes and stared up at the ceiling. How many times had he done that in his lab? Lying on that purple monstrosity of a couch that she'd left behind, just staring up at nothing until his brain eased down to white noise faint enough for him to fall asleep. He selfishly wondered if she had ever thought of him when she was trying to go to sleep, if her thoughts had ever betrayed her and kept her up at night like his did.

"I was afraid and ashamed and I- I'd never felt that before. I didn't know how to make sense of it."

Things had been so confusing after Marie had moved out. Part of him thought that some of it couldn't have been real. He remembered all the times she had asked him to get help, to go see the therapist the military was providing soldiers who returned from war, and how he had always shaken his head. If he just worked a little bit harder, kept his head buried in his notes, he would be fine. He was fine. He didn't feel different. He'd always been broken. What was a little more?

"I missed you and I think that scared me too," Stein continued, every word stinging him as they came out. It was hard for him to talk like this, especially when he didn't know how, but it was necessary. He'd kept so many things to himself for far too long and all it had ever done was hurt people and damage things in the end. He couldn't do that to Marie anymore, not after tonight. "I needed you to come back, but it was only for myself. I take and I take and I take - and that wasn't fair to you. All those times I used you to make myself more , and I never gave back."

"I never asked," Marie pointed out.

"You shouldn't have had to ask," Stein told her. "And by the time I realized that, I was too afraid to answer you. I had become… You wouldn't have liked what I became. I couldn't stand to see your disappointment and I didn't think I'd be strong enough to say no if you offered to help. So I just...never answered the phone, never wrote back. Eventually you would stop and you would move on and your life would be so much better. It was the only thing I could give you: a chance to escape."

Marie wiggled around so that she could prop herself up on her elbow and look him in the face. She did so until he dragged his eyes from the ceiling to look at her. "I didn't move because I wanted to escape you."

"I'm not a good person, Marie," Stein replied grimly. "You should know that after tonight."

"You have a good heart," she snapped in her firmest, no-nonsense voice, "and I know that precisely because of tonight." She reached out and touched his face, ignoring the scruff. "I know what this case meant to you - I know how important that research was to you, as horrific as it was - but you turned your back on it. I don't know if either Spirit or I would've done that because of the orders we were given."

Stein gazed at her, something very forlorn and tired swirling in his mind. "Did we lose some important part of ourselves in that desert?"

"I don't know," Marie admitted. "It feels like it sometimes, doesn't it?" She laid back down, pulling her hand away from his cheek. "But I could've sworn I felt it again tonight."

Leave it to Marie to be the positive one. Stein almost laughed, but instead pressed his lips together and stayed quiet. Tonight had been a night filled with horrors come true. However, it did feel as if Marie was right. How long had it been since the three of them had worked so well together? Every day in East City had been filled with tension and strife, but they had come together in the end. They were on the same page after so many years. He knew that Spirit had his back, just as he had been willing to sacrifice himself to save Spirit anymore pain. It was shocking to realize it now that things were over, but he would've done it.

"You don't have to be afraid," Marie told him softly while the room got a little lighter from the sun starting its ascent.

That, Stein thought as he began to drift to sleep, was a terrifying concept in itself

* * *

Two days later, after a series of painful debriefs, terribly detailed paperwork, and one particularly unpleasant phone call from the Fuhrer, the three soldiers found themselves back in the same train station. Spirit had once again taken them there, explaining that Maka was staying at Soul's while he saw them off. He was going to take some much needed time off to spend with his daughter - to help her deal with what had happened and also to attempt to rebuild their relationship. It wouldn't be that easy, but Stein decided against pointing it out.

After all, it was going to take more than one case to rebuild their own relationship. It appeared as if everyone had a lot of work cut out for them in the future.

Spirit hugged Marie fiercely, smiling at the way tears filled up her eye. "Maka and I will come visit you once you're settled, okay? She's been itching to see Central anyways and it'll be good for her to get out of town for a bit, I think. Help her look forward to something." Instead of looking back fearfully to the past. Stein could understand that. They all could. "Even if it does rain all the time there."

Marie sniffed and nodded her head as she pulled away. "Take care, Spirit. I'll call you when we get back."

None of them were talking about the case. After two days of talking about it non-stop, they had decided without words to not speak about it any longer. It would come back again eventually, especially since they were going to be in the same city as the Fuhrer, but for now, it was best to pretend that it didn't exist. Stein found it easier than expected to ignore something as large as the case against the Vector Alchemist when there were other things on the forefront of his mind.

With Spirit and Marie done with their goodbyes, that just left Spirit and Stein. The two men looked at one another, both with unreadable expressions, as they tried to figure out what to say. Of course, Spirit was the quicker of the two. He had always been better with people than Stein, something Stein had relied on back in their Academy days whether he'd realized it or not.

Spirit held out a hand and Stein took it, shaking his hand firmly without looking away. "You're not wearing your gloves," Spirit pointed out.

Glancing down as if noticing his bare hands for the first time - and maybe he was - Stein nodded his head. "They didn't seem necessary." It had been a long time since he'd parted with his alchemy gloves while in public, but he'd put them on top of his clothes in his suitcase and left them there. He wasn't only his alchemy.

A ghost of a smile crossed Spirit's face. "Thank you." When Stein tilted his head questioningly, Spirit continued, "For being there for Maka and Marie."

"Yeah, well," Stein replied, echoing Spirit from a few days ago, "you were knocked out cold."

Spirit grimaced as he pulled his hand away and rubbed the back of his head. "Turns out concrete isn't meant for soft landings." He glanced up at Stein, dropping his hand, and a more serious look came over his face. "Look after Marie, will you? She's stubborn as a rock and won't let anyone help her."

"I'm right here!" Marie huffed indignantly.

Stein grinned. "Of course."

It wasn't much, but it was more than Stein could've ever expected or asked for. It was more than he'd had in years and he was learning to be grateful for the little things.

Spirit was still standing there after Stein and Marie boarded the train and found their compartment. Marie waved at him as Spirit saluted, earning a laugh from him, and then the whistle blew to announce the train's departure. She ducked back inside and fell into her seat across from him, her cheeks rosy red and her eye glimmering, but she looked more pleased than sad.

As the train slowly started to chug along, Stein gave Marie a pointed look. "What was that Spirit said to you about 'once you're settled'?"

Marie folded her hands in her lap. She looked proper, sitting up straight and attentive, but he thought it only made her look like she was hiding something. "Oh, I didn't tell you? I'm being transferred from the Southern HQ to Central. It wasn't made official until yesterday. There was even talk of a promotion." Her voice, so casual, betrayed her nerves. "Of course, that means I'll have to find a place to move in fairly quickly. They don't give you a lot of time for things like this." She shrugged her shoulders. "I'll just stay in the dorms while I look for something. It'll be like I'm back at the Academy, except without Azusa to keep me company."

The words came out of Stein's mouth before he could even think about them. "You could stay at my place while you search for an apartment." Marie blinked back at him in surprise. Honestly, he was a bit shocked himself, seeing as how he had a strict policy on people not staying at his place for any longer than a few hours these days, but now that he'd said something, he couldn't back out. Besides, he didn't want to. "I've got a lot of storage and plenty of space so you won't have to rent a unit to put your things. Your old room is still unoccupied as well."

A shy smile came across Marie's face, but she was positively glowing. "That would be… That's very kind of you, Stein. Are you certain it won't be a problem? I don't want to distract you from your work."

"I think," Stein said as he leaned back into his seat and gazed out the window, "it would be a pleasant break from my work. Sometimes, a mind needs a vacation in order to improve."

And it was true. Stein was surprised by how much he meant it. Normally, he couldn't stand the idea of taking a break from his research, but he needed it. His mind felt ragged after the past few weeks, but it had also made him realize that he wasn't getting any better. He was hitting a wall and he hadn't been able to figure out why. Perhaps he'd just needed a few more doors to open in order to find other possibilities. He'd locked himself in one room and thrown away the key to protect others and himself, but all he'd done was block himself in and hold him back from making any true progression.

That and he missed Marie. He wanted her to be around. Being alone all the time wasn't as beneficial as he'd thought. He'd forgotten how important ties to the world were, how much stronger they made him, how better of a person he could be when he was around others. It was easy to forget holed up in that lab of his, trapped with nothing by his alchemy research, but it was hard to ignore now. Marie was not an easy person to ignore. He would know; he'd done it for years and it had wounded him every single time.

"Oh," Stein said, a frown crossing his face, "I'm going to have to go grocery shopping. I hate doing that."

When Marie laughed, it was the most beautiful sound he had ever heard, more beautiful than any alchemy transmutation, and he felt lighter than he had in years. Her laughter sounded familiar to him, as familiar to him as a friend. It was incredibly comforting, more than he could ever admit.


End file.
